


No Stranger to the Cold

by objetpetita



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Victorian, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objetpetita/pseuds/objetpetita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has nothing left to lose, and he takes a position as personal physician for a bed-ridden young woman at a place called Thornfield Hall. Jane Eyre/Victorian novel AU.</p>
<p>**On hiatus for now, with apologies to faithful readers. I will get back to it as soon as possible and will adjust the rating as it changes.**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [booksandroses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandroses/gifts).



> This fic is the direct result of two people:  
> First, [ ser_pez](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ser_pez/pseuds/ser_pez), whose open and unabashed love of Sherlock fanfiction inspired me to give it a try. Here's your belated birthday present, you big inspiring goober!  
> Second, [ PenelopeWaits](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeWaits/pseuds/PenelopeWaits), who planted an idea in my head about a Jane Eyre AU in which John is Jane. It has since become less of a direct Jane Eyre retelling and more of a haphazard collision of all my favorite Victorian novels, and I am hoping she does not mind the liberties I've taken with her wonderful suggestion.  
> Speaking of the liberties I've taken: I am no historian, and as a result this story makes absolutely no claims to historical accuracy, and instead only makes claims to appropriating bits of everything from here and there. If you would like to make sense of it, the best way to think of it is probably that it takes place in a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey universe whose contact with our own linear timeline is promiscuous, unhistoricist, and entirely literary.  
> If what you desire is a more historically rigorous Victorian-era story, then I think the thing you are looking for is achray's very brilliant and very knowledgeable[ All We Ought To Ask](http://archiveofourown.org/works/868705/chapters/1667601).  
> Finally, I plan to update on a weekly(ish) basis, and thank you for reading!

John Watson was no stranger to the cold. His time abroad had not left his finances or his medical practice in good health, as it were, and his clothes were wearing a bit thin in places. 

Accustomed as he was to the bite of winter, John knew to resist the natural impulse to tighten up, and to relax his muscles instead, settling into the cold rather than wasting precious energy fighting to keep it out. He crossed his free hand in front of him, tucking his hand under the crook of the opposite arm. Dusk was giving way to darkness by now, but John shuffled on determinedly. Thornfield was surely not more than a quarter mile farther down this road, and he had written to the housekeeper, one Alice Fairfax, that he would arrive on this date. Moreover, he was loath to turn back just to have to hobble all the way again in the morning. His limp was an inconvenience on most days, and downright treacherous on icy roads like this one. 

John’s intent focus on his own feet, willing them to fall evenly on the hard ground, kept him from noticing the sound of hooves approaching. A dog’s bark roused him to his surroundings, and he looked up in time to see a gigantic hound flash past, a blur of long black and white fur. Registering the tramp, tramp of hooves, John hopped quickly to the side of the road, and not a moment too soon. The horse and rider careened past him, neither seeming to notice him at all. 

“Pardon,” John muttered sourly. “Just an invalid doctor doddering along down the road, never mind me.”

He’d barely started to walk again when he heard a shout and a clatter at the bottom of the short hill he’d just crested. He turned, startled, to find the rider and his horse ungracefully tangled on a patch of ice. The unnaturally large dog seemed agitated by the sight and rushed to John, barking and nudging his elbows—good God, it could reach his _elbows—_ with its nose. “All right,” he told the dog. “Yes, I see it, I’m coming.”

The dog seemed convinced by this and darted back down the hill to her master. John kept pace and arrived at the bottom of the hill just as the dark form on the ground managed to spring to his feet, swearing. John threw a hand out, predicting correctly that the man’s flailing arms would throw him off balance, as he was still standing in the center of a patch of dark, slick ice. 

The strange man left off bellowing, seeming startled into silence by the sight of his hands instinctively grasping the proffered forearm. 

“Careful,” said John. 

The man turned a penetrating gaze on John’s face. His eyes were pale and sharp. “What,” he said, “the deuce.” His voice, throaty and deep, rang in the otherwise silent night. 

John frowned. “Sorry?”

The man pulled with some force and simultaneously stepped toward the doctor, which brought their faces so close John could feel the brush of his breath. As in the presence of a wild animal, John decided it seemed best not to make any sudden movements. The strength of that stare, however, made him wish a little ruefully for the elbow-height dog again. The dog suddenly seemed the less likely candidate to bite him. 

The man’s feral eyes matched his hair, which was like none John had ever seen: glossy, dark, clearly well cared for, and yet utterly unruly. It sprang outward from his head in whorls and waves, the ends of it trembling with the man’s barely controlled energy. He was filled with a kind of histrionic buoyancy, a tautness that might snap at any moment. His expression remained unreadable.

Pale eyes roved freely over John’s face, from his hairline to his chin to his ears. He dared not move more than the muscle in his jaw he could feel but not stop himself flexing nervously. 

“What a tiny elf of a man has taken it upon himself to haunt my forest,” said the stranger abruptly. 

At that, John prickled. “Look here,” he said, letting some anger bubble into his voice. “I don’t know who you are, and I hardly care to, given how you treat your horse, but I very much doubt that this is _your_ forest. If you’re quite all right I’d just as soon be on my way.”

“It’s very unwise for a person to walk this road at night, as I am notorious for riding alone and recklessly at all hours.” The man continued as though John hadn’t spoken, whipping around and pacing, not bothering to step off the ice patch. “You, being unaware of that fact, must never have spent a day of your life in this town or any of the surrounding towns before this night. There is only one house along this road—too late for a stroll for pleasure, of course—so you are destined for Thornfield Hall. Destined for Thornfield Hall in the dark of night, never having been there before...” The man rubbed the side of his finger over the pad of his thumb in a way that John found oddly compelling. “Assassin?” he said curiously. “You don’t look much of one but perhaps that’s the entire point. Misdirection, with the ragged clothes and the cane.”

John glanced down suspiciously at his cane. “I’m afraid I don’t... are you asking—”

“If you’ve come to kill me, yes,” said the tall man. He fixed John with another disconcerting stare.

“Do people often send people to try to kill you?” John inquired, confused.

The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he said. “But _he_ might. Probably thinks it would keep me sharp.” 

John shook his head at that, for lack of anything else to do. “I am not here to kill anybody,” he told the man. “Ideally, I shall do the opposite. Though I suppose accusations of mercenary intrigue are the best I could hope for from the man who nearly ran me down with his mad horse and then called me an _elf_ instead of thanking me for rushing to his side in a moment of distress.” 

The eyes— _damn_ those eyes; John couldn’t bring himself to look away—narrowed down to knife edges. The man loomed into John again, hunched forward so that puffs of breath fell and broke like waves on John’s cheek. John refused to flinch. 

Then, the man straightened and it was as though he was entirely another person, all carefully composed lines. He ran one gloved hand over his head and somehow left behind a few ordered, smooth waves of dark hair. “I was not in distress.” 

John raised an eyebrow. “My mistake. I came down because it seemed as if you were.” 

The man looked offended. _Offended_. John silently called him a few things he would likely regret saying out loud. 

“Your horse has gone,” he said instead. The look of surprise on the great prat’s face was endlessly gratifying. 

“Damn!” he swore. John grinned.

After a beat in which neither of them said anything, the man shrugged as though conceding defeat. “Well, I suppose we may as well walk in company, then,” he said, as though changing the topic of conversation from tennis to tea. 

“We’re going in opposite directions,” John reminded him. 

The man gestured to his dog, waiting patiently behind him all the while, and started back up the hill. “Not without the horse, obviously,” was all he said. 

John started up after him, watching carefully where he set down his cane. His bad leg giving out on the ice was the absolute last thing he wanted this new acquaintance to see.

The man was halfway to where they started before he realised John was lagging behind. He turned in place and stared at John’s progress. John braced himself for another onslaught, but the man said only, “Hm,” and walked at John’s pace for the rest of the way. 

#

Thornfield Hall was tall, dark, and imposing. John thought it rather matched his now-silent companion. 

“Do you know the family?” John asked as they approached the door. 

“Mrs. Fairfax!” the man yelled, his voice booming in the quiet. 

“My _God_ , I hope you do know them,” John muttered. He took a step backward in the hope of dissociating himself from the presumptuous sort of man who walked up to dark houses in the night and simply yelled at them for entrance. 

A few moments passed before there was the scraping sound of a lock and the door swung open to reveal a short, plump woman wearing a put-upon expression. “Mr. Holmes,” she said politely. “I did leave a key near your riding things, sir, so that you could come in at your preference.”

The man—Holmes, apparently—waved his hand dismissively, as though he couldn’t care one way or the other about keys and locks. 

“I discovered a wee faerie prince on the road,” said Holmes, rounding on John, who had not yet figured out if he’d been invited in or not. “Materialized from nothing and bewitched my horse away,” he added solemnly. John studied his face for any sign that he was joking.

“Oh!” Mrs. Fairfax noticed John for the first time. John noted that she did not seem surprised in the slightest at Holmes’s behavior. “Might you be Doctor John Watson, sir?”

A kind of relief fell over John, as this woman seemed refreshingly direct in contrast to his erstwhile company. “Yes,” he said, stepping forward at last. “I am so sorry for my tardiness. Some trouble arose with my carriage on the journey from Lowood and I was forced to walk from town.”

“That’s quite all right, Doctor Watson,” said Mrs. Fairfax. Good nature tinged her cheeks with a rosy pink that John found quite comforting. “Will you take a little supper in your chamber,  or would you prefer I light the fire in the dining room?”

“No, no,” said John gratefully. “Supper in my rooms will be fine.”

The housekeeper  smiled. “Let me show you the way,” she said. 

John opened his mouth to bid good night to his odd new acquaintance, but Holmes was nowhere to be seen. 

Mrs. Fairfax glanced over her shoulder with a knowing look. “He does that,” she explained apologetically.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning dawned on John none too soon, though exhaustion still lay deep in his bones. He’d slept fitfully. Mrs. Fairfax’s accommodating efforts did little to combat the haunting effect of the house’s shadowy corners and ornate, heavy furnishings. John had purposely left the curtains open at the window, in fact, hoping with every toss and turn that dawn would come quickly. 

Half the night, he sheepishly remembered, he’d spent in a state of unmitigated anxiety, staring down the armoire of dark cherry-colored wood which faced his bed. Something, some silly madness, had drawn his eyes to it, over and over, all throughout the night, no matter where else he’d tried to fix his gaze.

At first, he felt only a powerful curiosity, uncanny in its force and quality. It made his skin prickle with sweat even though the fire in the grate had long died to embers. It seemed the armoire was pulling at a thread in his very core, keeping his brain awake with suspicion and and fear and hunger at once. As the hours passed, the curiosity built and burned until John thought he might unravel completely if he were to get up and throw open the doors, and yet the desire to do just that was nearly irresistible. As the hours wore on, a heavy weight that was not sleep but could not be dispelled by waking kept him immobile, unable to so much as roll away from the view of the towering vision. He had a growing sensation that something might burst through the wardrobe’s double doors at any moment, and he spent dark hours waiting, wide-eyed and wondering at himself. 

In the light of day, John felt more than a bit stupid about the whole thing. He dragged a pillow over his head and pulled at its edges so that it pressed him face-first into the mattress. It was a silly, childish way to react to an unfamiliar place, he chastised himself. Yes, he admitted, it might be a harsh, dark house. Still, there was no reason for a grown man with a fully capable scientific mind to give in to sensationalism. 

The blame, he reasoned, lay with Gothic novels. Like the ones Helen had used to read aloud to him on their nights together.

Now, of course, he was thinking of Helen. John released a low growl into the mattress. He threw himself from bed, resigned to a restless day.

 

When John ventured downstairs, his best clothes buttoned neatly around him, he hovered for an uncertain moment in the entrance hall. Both hands flexed, one on the handle of his cane, the other in midair.

“You’re a doctor,” rumbled a deep voice behind him. 

John turned, hoping not to show surprise on his face. “Yes,” he said. “John Watson.” He held out a hand. 

Holmes stepped across the room in a single stride and grasped the proffered hand. It brought him near enough that John had to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. The man hadn’t seemed quite so tall the night before, shrouded in the fading light. 

The brightness of day did little to bring color to Holmes’s wan face. His lips were full and a bit feminine, but hardly pink at all. In spite of his sickly pallor, however, he appeared quite muscular. A remarkable liquidity characterised his entire body, evident even in the way he extended his hand to meet John’s. 

“Do you take breakfast, Watson?” asked Holmes smoothly. 

“Ah, yes, thank you,” said John. “I’m sorry, are you—”

“Sherlock Holmes,” the man interrupted, releasing John’s hand and moving in the direction, John assumed, of the dining room. “Reluctant master of this frowsty place.”

John closed his eyes in embarrassment. He had assumed—had _hoped_ —this stupidly reckless rider of horses in the middle of icy nights would prove to be an eccentric houseguest, a distant relative of the family or some such thing.

“Problem?” 

John looked up to see Holmes walking casually backward, stepping easily around an occasional table, a wrinkle in the carpet, an incongruous—good God, was it _really_?—a cat’s skull lying in the middle of the corridor. Holmes’s eyes were on John’s face the entire time.

“No,” John spoke abruptly, realising he’d been staring at Holmes’s feet. “No, sorry, I only wish to apologise. I would not have spoken to you so harshly last night if I had known...”

One side of Holmes’s mouth curved upward in what could almost be called a playful way, if it hadn’t disappeared so quickly. “Never mind,” he said solemnly. “I am told I speak harshly to everyone, so I imagine it’s time someone began to speak harshly to me.” 

John blinked. “...I see,” he said tentatively. 

Holmes tilted his head and then, in one swift movement, swept grandly out of sight. John hurried to round the corner, daunted by the prospect of losing sight of his guide in such a large and unfamiliar house. 

Luckily, the dining room was not far. John tried not to gape when he entered, but the room was utterly vast. The entire space was pleasantly warmed by a fire in the (frankly impressive) fireplace. 

“Is that a dagger?” John asked, studying an object protruding from the mantel. 

“Yes,” Holmes responded simply. 

It was then that John noticed the table, set for only two, though with its size it could seat a party of sixteen in comfort. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “I thought—will your family not be joining us?”

The strange chilly color of Holmes’s eyes flashed hot for such a brief moment, John thought he might have imagined it entirely. “Doctor Watson,” he said, sounding impressed, “more and more I find the arrangement you’ve entered into with my housekeeper to be  _highly_  unorthodox.” He took a seat with a flourish.

John followed suit, but did not speak. He was beginning to have an inkling that direct questions were not the most effective strategy for gleaning information from this man.

“Indeed,” Holmes continued, confirming John’s suspicion that participation was not necessary in this (or, it seemed, any) conversation with him, “you’ve taken a position here and did not even inquire enough to know that _there is no family_ at Thornfield.” 

John could not help raising his eyebrows. It did explain some things, but left still more questions in its wake. Knowing only that he was hired to care for a seventeen year old girl, he had assumed he was entering the home of a wealthy family. Holmes seemed neither old enough to have a seventeen year old daughter nor young enough to be the sibling of one: hence John’s conclusion that he was a houseguest or visiting relative. Now, however, John wondered with some apprehension after what the relationship between Holmes and the girl might be, and more importantly why they were forced to live in such isolation from society. 

As though he knew the exact route of John’s nervous thoughts, Holmes rolled his eyes. “Thornfield houses nothing you need worry your delicate sensibilities over, Doctor; you may relax. It is a household of three: me, Mrs. Fairfax, and the object of your appointment, my young _ward,_ Adele Varens.” 

Holmes fell silent when Mrs. Fairfax entered to place breakfast in front of both of them. “Thank you, Mrs. Fairfax,” John said jovially. Holmes made no indication of noting her presence except to start speaking immediately upon her departure.

“You’ve recently returned from abroad,” he asserted. There was nothing of a question in his tone. “France or Belgium, I assume, since Mrs. Fairfax would have specified a proficiency with French in her requirements.” Holmes’s tone took on a sardonic, knowing pitch. “You’ve spent the last twelve months pissing away nearly all the money you have to your name. Yet instead of returning to your reasonably promising medical practice, you’ve elected to take an obscure little position in the country _—_ a position so odd it wasn’t even advertised; you heard of it by word of mouth. A tenuous social or family connection of some kind brought it to your attention.”

John licked his lips. “I didn’t mention to Mrs. Fairfax in our correspondence—”

“About the gambling and traveling, of course,” Holmes finished for him. “Not to worry, though; I am certain there are a number of aspects of this position that Mrs. Fairfax neglected to mention to you in return.” He cast an appraising eye over John’s reaction to this news. John endeavored not to have any reaction at all, just to deny him the satisfaction. 

“Ah. You are a little clever and you already suspected as much,” Holmes observed. “You know full well the compensation was too great to be as simple as being a live-in physician for a sickly girl. You don’t care.” Holmes clapped his hands together and rested the index fingers against his lips. “You had quite the shock, didn’t you, within your first year of medical practice, and you’re not certain you could go back to it.”

A thrill raced through John’s veins as his brain struggled to catch up to Holmes. “Amazing,” he couldn’t help himself saying. Holmes raised an eyebrow. “You know all that just from looking at me, don’t you? How do you do that?”

Holmes eyed him warily. “I do not simply _look,_ Dr. Watson,” he said. “I _observe_. I _deduce_.”

John shook his head in wonderment. “What else have you _deduced_ about me?”

Holmes spoke so rapidly John could barely follow. “You aren’t dissolute by nature; quite the opposite, in fact. You are very young and largely unmarked by the world, though you think yourself wizened and weary. Thus, your escape to Brussels is likely related to a particular event, something which affected you deeply. Obviously an encounter with death, that much is clear from your disinterest in practical concerns like purchasing a new winter coat. Not your own death, however: either the loss of a patient or the loss of a woman you loved—not sure which yet but give me a moment.” 

Holmes rose halfway out of his chair to survey John’s lap, then hummed in satisfaction. “Worn stitching along the left pocket of your waistcoat, but none by the pockets of your trousers, so no aimless fidgeting for you, Doctor. No, you’ve a treasured letter or scrap of cloth in that particular pocket. Lost lover it is, then. And yet—” here Holmes’s voice acquired a sharp excitement, “—you went to Belgium, not to your family, not to a friend—and you are not a man to be short of friends.” This last was said in the manner of an insult. 

“Ah,” Holmes barrelled on before John could draw breath, “Not just simple heartbreak, but _illicit_ heartbreak.” The timbre of his voice made it sound utterly sordid, but John couldn’t find the breath to protest. “You could tell no one of your dalliance, and so could tell no one of your grief. Even so, Belgium wasn’t enough to ease your mind—you’ve come to Thornfield rather than return to rebuild your practice—this is a matter of fear. Fear of what? You do not doubt your abilities as a medical man, since you’ve agreed to come here and try your hand at a case half a dozen doctors before you have deemed irredeemable—oh.” John felt himself flush as Holmes crowed, “ _Yes,_ I see it now. I was correct from the start: She _was_ your patient, but she was more importantly your lover; you lost her; and you don’t want to face the possibility of falling in love again because in youthful folly you’ve come to fear that being in love might mean losing that love to death. You aren’t afraid to be a doctor, Dr. Watson, you’re just afraid to meet any. More. Women.” Holmes finished this gleeful ejaculation with a magnificent flourish of his hand.

“Brilliant,” breathed John. It sliced into him, of course, right along the seam in his soul where Helen’s loss had never quite healed. It was painful, and hardly polite behavior, for Holmes to speak this way. Nevertheless, he had the sense that the scalpel Holmes wielded with his words was blazing hot, sterilizing and cauterizing where it cut. 

Holmes looked like he was going to say one thing, but decided against it. Instead, he brushed invisible crumbs off the edge of the table and said, “Vacuous compliments aside, Dr. Watson, as I say, there are several things of which you have kept yourself ignorant, and which it will behoove you to understand. For instance, that I am an eccentric and very wealthy misanthrope who prefers chemistry to other people. As such, I may well prove to be far from ‘amazing,’ as you say, and instead rather unlivable. This is a fact which Mrs. Fairfax will try to prevent you from figuring out for as long as possible.”

Without waiting for a response, Holmes continued, “Are you waiting to start eating until I do? Because you should know both that I am an abysmal host and that I am not planning to eat, so you may go ahead.”

The food was quite cold, of course, though John found he didn’t really mind. 

After breakfast, John decided to familiarize himself with the grounds, which appeared to be extensive. He decided for the moment to limit his exploration to a broad garden to the north of the house. A tall hedge surrounded the wide expanse of grass, perfectly kept, and then opened over a narrow cobbled path, which led to a sizeable rose garden. A tree, ancient and knobbly, presided over the far corner. Everything seemed brittle and frozen solid, but he imagined in warmer months the grounds were quite beautiful.

As he walked, John found himself unable to stray far from thoughts of Sherlock Holmes. The man obviously cared little for social convention—was, in fact, possibly actually incapable of being polite. Still, John liked him.  John had not desired much company since Helen’s death, but Holmes made the notion of friendship seem attractive again. Which was amusing in the extreme, given Holmes’s clear reluctance to engage in anything so pedestrian as common friendship. All in all, the situation was the silliest thing John had ever heard of. 

After a while, Mrs. Fairfax found John in the rose garden, staring up at the knobbly tree. 

“All right, Dr. Watson?” 

John turned to face her. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Is it time to make the acquaintance of my new patient?”

Mrs. Fairfax smiled in return. Her face was soft in a way that John thought probably made most people believe her to be simple, transparent. He suspected both that she was not nearly so easy to read as she seemed, and that this was probably one of the qualities most recommending her to a man like Sherlock Holmes, who seemed to so enjoy being mysterious.

“Of course,” she said brightly. A bit too brightly.

“Mrs. Fairfax, I think you’ll find me a liberal man,” John said gently. “I assure you that I can stomach whatever it is that you are hesitant to disclose to me. In fact, I urge you to share every piece of the young woman’s history that could be relevant to her care.” 

Mrs. Fairfax swept an appraising eye over the stark rosebushes and John wondered if she was indeed, as Holmes had implied, the sole person responsible for the upkeep of Thornfield. It seemed far too large a job for one woman, even one as energetic as Mrs. Fairfax appeared to be. 

“Adele does not speak,” the housekeeper said at last. “Or perhaps I should say she is not likely to speak.” 

John waited for her to elaborate.

The housekeeper sighed. “She’s fantastically clever, Dr. Watson, you must remember that. I have spoken to her many times myself, I can tell you. But sometimes, God knows why, the child simply does not speak. I think perhaps at those times, she _cannot_ speak. As though the words just fall out of her head, and she can’t assemble them into sentences anymore.”

John ran his thumb over the handle of his cane thoughtfully. The land around them was silent but for a gentle rustling. The sound of things alive, John thought—even in the harshness of winter, the grounds seemed to hum with the sounds of grass shoots brushing against one another in the wind, furred creatures licking their paws sleepily beneath the ground, buds crouched within the thin bark of the rosebushes, waiting to splay themselves wide in the spring. Thornfield was a funny place, a preposterous contrast to the simplicity of the countryside surrounding it. Within Thornfield’s walls, everything—even harmless armoires—took on the air of a mystery. 

Mrs. Fairfax continued, “The child can grow harsh in her frustration.” A pause. “She may try to frighten you off.”

“Frighten me?” John considered this. A seventeen-year-old girl hardly seemed like a frightening prospect. 

The housekeeper looked a little sad. “She has learnt from her guardian, I’m afraid, that it is best to keep others at a distance.” 

"Are she and Mr. Holmes very close, then?”

“Oh, no, no, she does not speak to him, not a word. Not that he’s given her much opportunity to try. But she did follow quite literally in his footsteps when she was younger. She fancied herself his shadow.”

“Doesn’t he care for her?” John could not imagine an entire adolescence of being ignored by Mr. Holmes. Poor girl.

Mrs. Fairfax sighed. “I suspect he merely hasn’t thought of caring for her or not.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John meets Adele and learns a bit more about what his position at Thornfield will entail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for a late update! The internet signal at my house has been startlingly unreliable of late. Updates should return to the weekend-ish posting schedule this week. 
> 
> Here we depart still further from the Jane Eyre canon; Adele's character has been entirely revised. And I promise there will be much more of Sherlock to come in the next installment!

John and Mrs. Fairfax faced one another over a small table in the kitchen, where Mrs. Fairfax had just poured John a truly perfect cup of tea and then introduced the second half of his proposed duties with regard to Miss Varens. 

John hummed into his cup. “It is an unusual request,” he said, slowly. “I cannot deny that I am intrigued by it.”

“What subjects would you like her to be taught? I’m afraid as far as languages go, beyond French and English I have only Latin, and not much of it.”

The stout woman across from him grinned. “She’ll best you at Latin, sir.” Then she added, with the air of one choosing her words carefully, “It isn’t the usual things a girl should learn, exactly.”

John furrowed his brow.

“A lot of people wouldn’t so much as entertain the idea,” Mrs. Fairfax explained. “But I’ve thought it over, months and months I’ve thought it over, and.” She pursed her lips. “The poor dear should have what she desires. God knows she deserves a bit of her own joy after life has all but starved it out of her.”

“And... what are her desires?” Ideas flitted through John’s mind. Would the girl want to learn about war? Insects? Perhaps something frightfully dull, like rocks, or law?

Mrs. Fairfax twisted her mouth around itself.  “She wants to learn about... _bodies,_ ” she explained in an undertone, as though someone might overhear the conversation and think it inappropriate. John shook his head, not quite taking her meaning. The housekeeper huffed. “The insides of a person,” she said, shifting in her seat. “She wants to know how things work... inside a person.”

John had never heard of a young girl being curious about anatomy. His first thought was that he admired her already. Then, a thought occurred which gave him some pause. From the look on Mrs. Fairfax’s face, she had been waiting for that precise realisation to fall into his head. 

“I did tell her,” she said, pursing her lips, “that she ought to consider there might be parts of... bodies she might not be ready to know about yet. Or ever.”

“And?”

The housekeeper sighed. “She looked right at me and said, her face as innocent as the dawn itself, ‘If you mean the parts between men and women, I think I’d especially like to know about that.’”

A giggle sprang from John’s throat unbidden. Mrs. Fairfax looked halfway between scandalized and pleased. 

“I don’t know what to make of the queer little thing, but there you have it. If you’re willing, Doctor, Mr. Holmes has made it clear to me that I am to make all decisions with regard to her upbringing, and I simply can’t find it in myself to deny the girl a bit of satisfaction.”

John hesitated. “So you really do mean I should give her lessons in anatomy. Even the... the sexual things.”

Mrs. Fairfax drank the last of her tea and set her cup down with a decisive click. “Once you meet her, perhaps you’ll see what I mean when I say the girl should have what she wants. So, yes, I do mean you should teach her whatever it is she wants to learn.” Then, she stood purposefully and collected his teacup and saucer. John was clearly meant to follow her lead, so he stood as well. 

“And, Doctor Watson?” she added, facing him squarely.

“Mm?” John felt a bit drifty, trying to think how he could possibly begin to explain a testicle to a seventeen-year-old woman who might not even be able to speak to him. 

“From this moment, you may carry on as you see fit, order whatever books you or she would like, and _you may_ _also_ ”—Mrs. Fairfax’s voice grew solemn as marble, as though this were the most crucial point— “ _never_ speak to me again of whatever it is you teach her in lessons.” 

John tilted his head as graciously as he could, and the kind housekeeper nodded firmly, once, and then set off to lead the way to Adele’s room. He could hear her muttering up ahead about “the things between a man and a woman” and “at my time of life, _honestly_.”

 

When they reached the correct door, Mrs. Fairfax pushed the door open and gestured John inside without further preamble. It was clear that she had no intention of accompanying him. 

“She tires of me trying to convince her to be polite,” she explained. “If you don’t take to one another, it will be all the better if I am not there to frustrate her even more.”

Reluctantly, John nodded his understanding and crossed the threshold. Hearing the door click shut behind him, he moved toward the bed, where a small figure sat draped in blankets. After half a moment of consideration, John held out a hand, as if they were about to conduct a business transaction.

Cloudy green eyes assessed the hand with detachment, and after a long moment, Miss Varens took it into her own. Her fingers were thin, but her grasp was steady. 

“I am Doctor Watson,” said John. His charge’s only response was to shrug one shoulder half an inch, not meeting his eyes. She released his hand silently. 

“I’m told you are afflicted with a weak constitution,” he offered. The girl appeared indifferent, though he could tell she was listening, which was a start. Encouraged, John went on. “But I don’t believe that’s true, do you?” 

Miss Varens’ gaze sidled up to meet his. Curiosity had flashed onto her face, bright and sharp. Against the pallor of her skin, those green eyes shone like chips of sea glass in sand. She raised one eyebrow: a challenge. John cleared his throat.

“You may have weaknesses, but I for one refuse to believe that you are simply weak,” he said firmly. 

Miss Varens’ fingers tightened in her lap and her eyes widened slightly.  For the first time, John noticed that she was actually quite pretty, if a bit gaunt. Her features were elongated and graceful, which made them seem a bit big for her face. It gave her an exaggerated, innocent sort of beauty.

John took in the limp waves of her hair, recalled the sickly softness of her fingers when they had touched his own. “You’ve been shut up in this bedroom for a very long time, haven’t you?” 

The girl nodded and spoke at last, her English touched with just the slightest hint of French vowels. "When I exert myself, I have been prone to fits.” Hearing her speak, John's heart nearly sang with satisfaction. Her voice was like a bell, resonant and clear. It seemed incongruous from such a frail-looking figure. "When it happens, I find I cannot breathe,” she explained. “My throat constricts and I feel my chest has turned to stone.” 

“And so your doctors have recommended you stay abed,” John surmised. The girl nodded again and John felt a quick glimmer of fear that she would not speak any further.

“I do hope you will grant me a different regimen,” the bell-like voice continued, to John’s relief. Her curious face turned up toward him. John took a deep breath. Yes. Here was one mystery at Thornfield he felt he could get to the bottom of. 

“Quite.” John felt it was all right now to break eye contact, so he allowed himself to look around for a chair. Locating one in the corner, he pulled it forward and looked back at his patient. “May I sit and talk with you for a while?” he requested. 

Another nod. John sat and crossed one leg over the other. “Thank you,” he said. 

Miss Varens cocked her head and looked amused. “I thought it was customary for the patient to thank the doctor, not the other way round.”

John laughed softly and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ve no reason to thank me,” he said genially, “as I have not yet”—he emphasized the “yet”— “reunited you with your good health. I, however, have every reason to thank _you_ , for the opportunity to sit and talk a while with someone nice, whom I suspect I will discover I like very much.”

A rustling at the door alerted John to the arrival of Mrs. Fairfax. She sounded approving when she spoke, likely in observation of John’s comfortable posture and the pleased expression on Miss Varens’ face. 

“Only wondering if you will take dinner at the usual time this evening, Miss,” said the housekeeper. 

The young woman nodded again, her eyes not straying far enough to make eye contact. John waited for her to say something, but when it seemed she would not speak, he turned in his chair to look at the woman in the doorway. He gave Mrs. Fairfax a broad, charming grin. “Thanks, Mrs. Fairfax,” he said. “I think we can manage from here.”

“She was checking to see if I’d frightened you off,” Miss Varens remarked after the housekeeper had gone.

“Do you frighten off every doctor who comes to see you?”

 “Of course, if they are all going to offer the same diagnosis.” The response was quick. John had the suspicion that though he was the one asking the questions, he was yet also the one being assessed.

“How do you frighten them?” he asked.

“I have a particular talent of staring for a very long time without blinking.”

John sucked in his cheeks to keep from laughing. “I shall endeavor not to let you frighten me,” he guaranteed. “But that brings me to a rather important point. Will you consent to tell me why you would not speak to your previous doctors?”

Miss Varens pulled a section of hair free from the rest and combed through it with her fingers, apparently thinking of how to answer. “The thing of it is that it isn’t a matter of will, Doctor Watson. I know how to speak, of course, but to them I simply couldn’t.” She seemed to deflate against the pillows. “Though there are times I think it might be simply a matter of will after all. Afterward, I am never positively sure that I _couldn’t_ have spoken, if I had only _really_ tried.” Her fingers moved like pale moths, tracing erratic patterns through her long hair. Uncertainty alit on her features and John’s heart leaned toward her. He could see now what Mrs. Fairfax had meant. There was a hungry light behind Miss Varens’ sea-glass eyes, so much more serious than one would usually expect from someone of her age. It was magnetic. 

The young woman went on, her fingers in wild motion. “Because when a person is here, looking right at me, sometimes I feel—I feel I would _hate_ to talk to them, even if I _damn_ well could.” Her voice rose at the end of it, petulant and youthful, and John could not hold back his smile. He hoped she would not think he was making fun. 

Miss Varens, however, was smiling back. Pink roses bloomed high on her cheeks. “That sounds mad,” she admitted.

“Even more so when you swear,” John agreed, but he stayed leaning forward in his chair, a warm, easy grin on his lips. “But you’re not mad. You’re a living mechanism and I am, too. We’ve all got weak parts and strong parts and we all work for whatever particular purpose suits us best.” The girl laughed softly at this, but there was amusement, not derision, in the tinkling sound. Encouraged, John went on decisively. “If a machine seems mad, it’s only because you’ve not figured out how to use it properly yet.”

This got a proper laugh, which John took great pleasure in. Already, he knew she would bring happiness to his time at Thornfield. The weightlessness of that knowledge buoyed him upward in a way he’d not felt since losing Helen. 

“You said yourself that what I said sounded mad,” protested Miss Varens. 

John tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “But I’ve started thinking it’s English that’s mad,” he assured. “Or French. Any language, really. It never quite works or doesn’t, never quite manages to do one thing or the other. Sometimes it’ll simply _refuse_ to work, haven’t you found that? We find we can’t say what we mean, or worse, we find we can say exactly what we mean, but as soon as it comes out it means something entirely different.”

He grinned across at her, and they sat for a moment in silence, each staring avidly at the other like children being introduced for the first time.

John sobered a little, but his heart remained light in his chest. “I’m told I shall be your tutor as well as your doctor while I am here,” he said with a touch of seriousness. “So here will be your first lesson: Language is essential, but we and it are at permanent cross-purposes. We, the human mechanisms trying to work, trying to make one thing mean another, and language, the madness that confounds us at every turn.” He took the liberty of reaching over to touch the pads of his fingers to Miss Varens’ hand. “You aren’t mad,” he said. “And you aren’t weak.”

Miss Varens wrapped a strand of hair around her other thumb, eyes still alight. “Part of me thinks _you_ must be mad.”

John nodded firmly. “Yes,” he said solidly. “And yet  _you_ must take everything I say seriously, because I am older than you are.” He stretched his legs out before him and crossed them at the ankle. He clasped his hands behind his head, striking a mock-philosophical pose. 

 

They spoke for an hour before Miss Varens—Adele, she forwardly asked him to call her—began to show fatigue. Her sentences grew shorter; her posture began to flag. It stood to reason, after an entire adolescence of hardly knowing anyone besides Mrs. Fairfax—and even then, only speaking to her some of the time—a full-blown conversation with a stranger would quickly take its toll. He took his leave without letting on that he could tell she was tired, leaving her with a promise to begin her lessons the very next day. 

Afterward, John marveled at himself. The sight of this young woman, frail but defiant, had bred a kind of recklessness in him. For the first time in what felt like ages, the chill in his heart gave way to something else. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [ Iriya](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Iriya/pseuds/Iriya) for the beta! I revised a little further, so any remaining mistakes are completely my own. 
> 
> Also, I think I should note that, age-wise, John and Sherlock in this universe align more closely with Jane and Rochester of the novel than they do with John and Sherlock's respective ages on the show. That is, John is significantly (well, depending on how you measure significance) younger. I have also, I think, rounded Sherlock's age down from where Edward Rochester's is in the novel, but honestly I have never determined for sure how old Rochester is meant to be.

As it happened, Sherlock began his observations of John Watson earlier in the day than he intended. He was in the pantry searching for a suitable variety of preserves for an experiment he had underway in his chambers when two voices echoed from the kitchen, arresting his search. He fell still, the better to eavesdrop on the brief exchange between Dr Watson and Mrs Fairfax. 

The doctor was enquiring after dinner, whether it would be served at the same time every night, whether Adele ever took her meals in the dining room, whether he could expect to see Mr Holmes at dinner. To this last, Mrs Fairfax, bless her subtlety, told him that Mr Holmes had many pressing items of business that impeded his keeping regular mealtimes.

Sherlock stayed put in the pantry for a long time after that, designing new experiments in his head until they both had gone. 

That evening, Sherlock watched the doctor sit down to dinner alone. He was certain Watson had not noticed him standing – Mrs Fairfax would say skulking – in the shadows of the corridor. Heavy curtains in the corridor allowed him to see without being seen, enabling him to sidestep the tedious work of making conversation.

It was unfortunate that the angle of the doorway was such that Sherlock could only see Watson’s back. Sherlock already had ample opportunity to memorise the doctor’s expressions, of course, but so far encounters with the doctor had been confounding in the extreme. 

And something had been niggling at the edges of Sherlock’s mind ever since he met John Watson. Objectively, Sherlock knew that it was entirely down to the dim and the lurch and the accidental upside-down-ness of those first moments, but, in an irretrievable flight of fancy, he had thought the short man looked... well. He looked like sodding Robin Goodfellow incarnate –like a queer little woodland sprite come to visit mischief upon Sherlock’s horse. For a mad moment, Sherlock had honestly thought he saw the man approaching go a bit shimmery at his edges.

The effect, of course, might have been the result of inhaling fumes from his experiments, coupled with the blow to the head. Sherlock made a mental note: must have Mrs Fairfax see to the ventilation of his rooms. Perhaps the entire wing of the house, now that he thought of it. Couldn’t have the odd vapour getting into his head and making John Watson seem to luminesce. Especially since it seemed (from the doctor’s posture and rate of breathing as he tucked into his meal) that the meeting with Adele ended favourably, and so Watson would be staying on at Thornfield Hall for some time to come.

At the table, Watson ate steadily. He paused, on average, after every third bite for a sip of wine. At seemingly unpredictable intervals, he emitted a hum of appreciation so soft he seemed not to be conscious that he was doing it. 

Uncannily, it was just as Sherlock began to wonder what the faeries occupy their minds with while they dine alone that John laughed softly to himself and shook his head. Curiosity became a burning weight on Sherlock’s chest, and he inched toward the open doorway. He stared hard at the line of Watson’s shoulders, willing his mind to piece together whatever it was that had made the doctor laugh.

But, to his chagrin, a sharp “ _ssssst!”_ roused Sherlock from his thoughts. A glance up the corridor revealed Mrs Fairfax looking stern.

Sherlock widened his eyes and turned his palms up. Surely whatever it was could wait until after dinner. 

Not to be put off, however, Mrs Fairfax persisted in beckoning. He hesitated, and her gaze grew harder, her gesticulations broader. She looked like a rather stout bird trying to get aloft. With a silent sigh, Sherlock slunk over to meet her. On his way, he took a last glance into the dining room, where Watson, oblivious, appeared to be watching the light catch in his wine as he swirled the glass by its base. 

“With respect, Mr Holmes,” began Mrs Fairfax, “most people do not take to being spied on while they’re at their dinner.” 

Sherlock shrugged. “Bored,” he said. 

The housekeeper sucked one of her cheeks in, a habit Sherlock found utterly annoying, as it usually signalled one of her surprisingly adept insights into his personal motivations – which, for a number of reasons, he preferred to keep to himself. Mrs Fairfax’s talents at keeping his secrets for him unfortunately accompanied a sharpness of wit that made it difficult to keep any secrets from her. 

“If you wanted to dine with him, sir, you might have,” she commented. “I know you’re not exactly accustomed to eating with guests, but I’m certain he would not have minded, especially considering you are the master of the house.” She looked Sherlock up and down and then added, “And he seems a polite sort.” 

Sherlock jerked his head irritably, not missing the implication that he was _not_ “a polite sort” himself. 

“I didn’t want to _dine with him_ ,” he shot back. 

The dimple deepened where Mrs Fairfax’s cheek was caught between her teeth. “Remember I have had little boys of my own, Mr Holmes. Do you know what I learnt from them?” Sherlock’s face pinched into a grimace. “A person never hides in the shadows to watch a game they _don’t_ wish to join.”

Sherlock scoffed. “I am not a _child_ , Mrs. Fairfax.” He stepped forward to loom as far as possible over her, even knowing full well that his tactics seldom actually intimidated the woman anymore. He was a second away from formulating a sufficiently sharp follow-up to that, with which he hoped to derail this conversation entirely, when a cough sounded in the corridor. 

“Mr Holmes?” the doctor’s voice enquired from behind him. 

Sherlock wheeled around. 

“Is anything the matter?” asked Watson, concern evident in his tone. “I’m sorry I did not wait for you for supper – I assure you, however, that Mrs Fairfax is not to blame for it. I pressed her quite vehemently and I apolo –”

“Oh, you needn’t attempt gallantry over it, Doctor,” Sherlock interrupted. “I happen to know _she_ pressed supper upon _you_ and explicitly instructed you not to await my arrival. I am not scolding her for the supper; you may stand down.” 

Watson relaxed, but not all the way. “Then may I –”

“Yes, you may enquire as to what I am scolding her for, but I doubt you will like my answer, which is that I’m scolding her for being a meddlesome, tiresome old bag.”

Watson’s mouth fell right open. The pink of his tongue was tinged a shade darker from the wine, Sherlock noticed without meaning to. 

“It’s all right, Dr Watson,” Mrs Fairfax cut in. “I’ve no insecurities regarding my position in relation to Mr Holmes. Who is frankly appalling at judging when he is in need of nothing more than a good meddling.” 

Watson blinked, then shot a glance at the glass still in his hand, now nearly empty of wine. “Thornfield Hall,” he mused, “is not very much like anywhere else, is it?”

It was a humorous thing to say, and Sherlock wanted to laugh, but he also was not yet sure he wanted Dr Watson to see him laugh, so he refrained. Instead, he said,

“Walk with me in the garden.” 

Watson nodded, took the command in stride. 

“Yes, all right,” he said. He tossed the last of the wine back and swallowed. 

When they reached the front door, Watson having donned his ratty old coat and Sherlock his own thick, long one, Sherlock held the door and followed behind. He surreptitiously assessed the severity of Watson’s limp as he went. Far too dramatic for the doctor to simply overcome it with adrenaline as he had the night before, racing to Sherlock’s side. It occurred to Sherlock again that the limp might be feigned – an effort to make the doctor appear less threatening – though to what end, Sherlock could not surmise. Sherlock narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but as the his cane caught on an uneven pebble in the path, the short man stumbled and swore, and then glanced back to his companion, cheeks redder than the cold alone would make them. Not a limp put on for show, then. Watson really did suffer from the infirmity. Which eliminated every probability, save one: an affliction of the mind, an imagined but nevertheless disabling pain. 

Watson recovered from the stumble and set out in the direction of the rose garden at a quick clip, probably to compensate for his misstep on the pebble. Sherlock aimed a small kick at the offending rock, then strode to keep up. 

Watson came to a natural stop beneath the broad oak tree alongside the rose garden. Sherlock smirked approvingly; this was his favourite part of the garden as well.  The shorter man stood evenly on both feet and turned, blue eyes locking with Sherlock’s. Sherlock felt the smirk fade from his features, dissolved like sugar in piping hot tea. 

Beneath the towering old tree, surrounded by shrubbery, the suddenly even-footed young doctor struck quite a figure.  A golden-haired Puck, mischievous and daring. Sherlock memorised the image, sorted it in a box in his mind. Watson’s eyes seemed to reflect silvery moonlight even though it would be hours before the moon was up. 

_Bewitching._ The word floated up in Sherlock’s mind like a fragile bubble surfacing in water.  

Something pulled taut within him – very, very taut – and he was suddenly very aware of his own breathing, the tingle of cold air in his lungs, the puffs of white that visibly marked his quickening exhalations _._ Sherlock managed something like a prayer, in which he asked the doctor not to be observant enough to notice any of the signals of Sherlock’s discomfiture. 

Then, he felt a sudden, thankful release as Watson looked easily away, up into the purpling sky. It left Sherlock fighting his own body, refusing to pant for the air his lungs demanded. His brain flickered to life again, to his relief and chagrin, as the explanation became suddenly, starkly, _stupidly_ clear. Sherlock chastised himself colourfully, but silently. 

 

In his early life, when Sherlock discovered desire, he had assumed something in him would eventually turn, would cleave to women as he neared a marrying age. As he entered adulthood, he began to hope the perversion in his heart would simply subside, would burn itself out of him and leave him desireless. It was too much to bear, this too-hot craving for other men, the longing to hold them as they held their women, to kiss them, to lie down against them and feel their skin warm his own. 

The hunger in his heart compounded a natural-born antisociality: he grew unreachable, bent on exposing the utter stupidity of every last person who crossed his path. He learnt to hide himself, learnt that of the schoolmates who would indulge him in quick collisions of flesh, very few could abide his wishes for softer contact, for the caresses of a lover, for the push and pull of wooing. 

His heart darkened as his intellect sharpened, and he scraped himself over and over the central, jagged unfairness of his life: that he should be able to see and think better than anyone else, and yet could never understand how other people were able to fall into one another so easily, without thinking at all. 

By the time he was twenty-one, Sherlock knew to hope for change was fruitless. 

Once, on the afternoon of the day he inherited Thornfield Hall, his brother had treated him to a lecture. Mycroft, of course, did not know at the time of Sherlock’s secret perversity, but he did know and disapprove of a rash streak he perceived in Sherlock’s character. 

“I am installed in our father’s estate, and so Thornfield Hall falls to you, brother,” Mycroft had said. “Please do think of this as an opportunity to anchor your wayward, volatile heart.” He paused for a long moment. Then, perfectly casual, he added, “Or if you will not, consider Thornfield’s remoteness as an opportunity enjoy your retirement from our circles.”

So it came to pass that Sherlock made his retreat to Thornfield Hall. 

 

A number of years – each of which seemed like its own lifetime – had come and gone since anyone passed near enough to stir the fire Sherlock kept dampened deep within him. Long enough that Sherlock had failed at first to recognise the sensation for what it was. 

Now, he and Watson stood facing one another: Sherlock mapping the history of his recalcitrant desire along the branches of the old oak tree, Watson surveying the wisps and bunches of clouds and thinking hideously normal, everyday thoughts. The scorn he felt for Watson’s stupid, bland expression was half-hearted, though – an automatic defense rather than an actual feeling. Far more immediate was the familiar, perverse hunger that flared in his heart. 

Without his permission, Sherlock’s eyes flicked over Watson’s posture. The easy curve of his spine hinted at a solidity of muscle in his shoulders and thighs, which Sherlock hoped he could manage not to think about too hard. He redirected his gaze to a less erotic zone: the doctor’s hands, which were beginning to go pink. Sherlock’s soul raged against a world in which such small, strong hands might go ungloved in the cold. 

“May I ask a frank question?” Watson cut into his thoughts, now rosy-cheeked as well as rosy-palmed. 

Sherlock sighed theatrically. His breath furled into the air, accentuating the impression of boredom nicely. 

Undeterred, Watson grinned at him. 

“Why would a perfectly wealthy, not-yet-infirm, unwed man shut himself away alone in a place like this?”

“Why would a perfectly able-bodied, barely-in-breeches, unattached doctor take a position as a governess instead of returning to the bosom of his family to nurse his broken heart?”

The grin did not fade, but something behind it shifted. Watson licked his lips. 

“Your new governess is not so able-bodied as you seem to think,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought a genius like yourself would fail to deduce something so obvious.”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. 

Watson shook his head. 

“Anyway, I am a doctor, _barely-in-breeches_ though I may seem, and as a doctor I must ask you what in God’s name you think you’re doing keeping a young woman like Miss Varens trapped here with you.” 

There was a kind of depth to the spark in his eye that made Sherlock want to tug him close and stare. Watson seemed never to quite lose that glint of amusement, even when he spoke in utter seriousness. One could not escape the feeling that some particle of his being was always still laughing at the silliness of the mortal world. Yet at the same time, Sherlock imagined that if that innocent glint were to flip over to its other side, one might glimpse a jagged _something_ , which the mirrored surface of Watson’s amusement kept from view. 

“You are very young for a doctor,” said Sherlock, changing the subject.

“No, I am a bit young for a doctor. And anyway, you’re very young for an elderly recluse.”

Sherlock waved a hand. 

“Trick of the light and fair complexion,” he said. “I am old and desiccated at heart.”

To Sherlock’s surprise, Watson rolled his eyes. He made no attempt to hide it. 

“Not so much as a decade separates our ages, I am certain,” he said. “You might wait until you are at least in middle age to begin calling yourself ‘desiccated.’”

Sherlock scowled. 

“And I suppose I'm meant to be staggered by the bout of adolescent heartache which you seem to think has rendered you world-weary and wise,” he snapped.

But of course this was not how Sherlock wanted things to go; he felt this even as he knew he could not stop things from going just exactly as they currently were. His crusted-over heart, his rigid spine, his damnable tongue, which let fly volleys of ridicule whether he wanted it to or not... His entire body was well-practiced at preventing him from coming near to another person. 

Watson’s mouth fell into a perfectly straight line. He bounced a few times on the balls of his feet as though weighing his next move. "You will not speak of her,” he said, finality in his voice. “My ‘adolescent heartache,’ as you say, has forged the shape of me, down to the very essence of my being, and I will not permit you to speak of it this way.”

The flat hardness of his tone stopped Sherlock’s blood in his veins, though he did not show it. Reflexively, he prepared himself for being hated. Once learned, it took remarkably little effort: a brief mental routine, bolting the doors and covering the windows of his mind palace. The psychological metaphor was as easy to execute as it was effective.

“Nonetheless,” Watson continued, as though the single word were its own sentence. He waited a long moment before going on. “I think I shall forgive you. Because for some reason, you are a man who believes himself irreparable.” 

“And?” Too fast. It was meant to sound challenging, but it came out much closer to frightened. Sherlock kicked himself. 

The doctor smiled. “I’m terribly obstinate, you ought to know. I find myself wanting to prove you wrong.” 

Most people would have given in to anger at Sherlock’s dismissal. A smaller number might have reacted with cloying sympathy, presuming to read pain behind his vitriol. 

And yet. John Watson supplied something new. Sherlock felt as though someone had gummed up all the bolts on all the doors in his head – _including_ the trap doors. Attempts to sort his impressions of the doctor into neat boxes were getting jumbled before he could secure them. It seemed every lock, box, and passageway in the mind palace would suffer as a result of John Watson’s intrusion. 

Sherlock’s frustration threatened to brim over. It was all too much – the ringing confidence in the young doctor’s voice; the golden tint of his skin; the swallowing darkness that threatened to block out everything save what he could see by Watson’s apparent capacity for producing light.

Serene and utterly ignorant of Sherlock’s struggle, the doctor simply started walking again, along the perimeter of the rose garden. Sherlock, feeling dazed, fell into step at Watson’s side, hands clasped behind his back as he kept pace.

They had nearly completed a circuit around the garden before Watson said decisively, "I can see by now that you are determined to try to confound me. But I want you to know I will not be deterred by your efforts to be unpleasant and mad. Do you know why? Because Miss Varens is desperately in need of exposure to people who are not unpleasant and mad."

They had circled back to the tree now. There was a low-hanging branch near his face. Sherlock reached up, pulled it lower, bent a twig back with his thumb. “What of her health?” 

“She will be able to help Mrs Fairfax tend the roses by spring.” John underscored the statement with a firm nod.

“Have I mistakenly laboured under the impression that doctors are men of sympathy and sensitivity? You seem terribly arrogant.” 

Watson tilted his head and licked his lips. 

“I’m also quite good.”

 

Soon, Sherlock called an end to their evening stroll, and it was _not_ because the blasted doctor had begun to shiver in his blasted threadbare coat. It was because the man was an idiot, and because Sherlock was an idiot for liking him anyway.

Back at the house, Sherlock shrugged out of his coat and made quickly for the stairs to his personal rooms, careless of Watson’s slower pace. All the better, as Sherlock felt it would be wise to remove himself from Watson’s presence as quickly as possible. The walk had been a bad idea, for Sherlock now felt awkward. Still, he reminded himself, further contact with the doctor had been required—more data had been required—in order to ascertain the nature of Sherlock’s interest in him. 

Unfortunately, now that he had a clear idea of just what his interest entailed, Sherlock was at a loss for what to do about his conclusions. Perhaps, Sherlock thought, he might mask his liking in outright hostility. Then again, no. His desires would be most safely guarded by misdirection, not theatrics. The lady doth protest too much, et cetera.

“Sorry?” 

The doctor’s tenor echoed in the quiet hall and Sherlock realised two things in quick succession. First, that they had not spoken to one another for several minutes, not since Sherlock had announced the walk was over. Second, that he’d muttered that last bit about Shakespeare out loud. 

Damn. Sherlock turned, halfway up the stairs. 

“Nothing. A mental note.” 

“Ah.” Oddly, Watson seemed to accept this. Perhaps the doctor truly did think him mad. 

“Doctor.” Sherlock had a sudden notion, an impulse to say something that was normal, something... sociable. “I would prefer it if you would call me by my given name,” Sherlock said. It sounded like a command rather than the invitation he had meant it to be. Ah, well. Sherlock gave it up for a bad job and pivoted again to go up the stairs.

“Very well,” he heard Watson say. “You may call me John, if you wish.”

A tickle in the lower hemisphere of Sherlock’s belly made itself known. 

“Good night, John,” said Sherlock.

“Good night, Sherlock.” 

 

Throughout the night, Sherlock replayed and reflected on the walk in the garden, which had not, shockingly, gone terribly wrong. It even seemed, at the end, that Watson – _John_ , that is _–_ was not averse to Sherlock’s effort to introduce cordiality between them. 

In short, the doctor defied his every expectation, which was both fascinating and horrifying. 

God, Sherlock mused, had he ever once flickered with so much being-young? The younger man was sad, of course, but he was not defeated. Even leaning on a cane, _John_ – the name was italicised every time it appeared in Sherlock’s head – held himself as though he could fuck and laugh and dance and scream a sonnet from memory at once. Perhaps, Sherlock thought with a twinge, there were even women who had seen him do just that. John would have no difficulty finding someone willing to forgo propriety to gain his presence in her bed. Sherlock certainly wished he could do so much.

Still worse, of course, than the physical wanting was the following observation: 

Sherlock wanted John Watson to _like_ him. 

Stupid notions were flashing across his mind, half-formed images made of spun sugar optimism. A golden-skinned hand laid companionably on his shoulder. Yellow hair glinting in firelight. A warm tenor voice lowered intimately, then rising in a fey giggling trill. 

Gluttony of the mind. Sherlock chastised himself silently, sleeplessly, until sunlight peeked through the curtains of his room.

 

Meanwhile, John stared for a long time, just as he had the previous night, at the armoire facing his bed. It did not spark in him such an overwhelmed, dreadful curiosity as it had before, but it remained an ominous face to look into as he tried to drift away from wakefulness. 

Watching the armoire with utmost suspicion, but thankfully less irrational anxiety, John chuckled over the events of the day. Between breakfast and bedtime he had convinced one resident at Thornfield that there was no such thing as madness, and then he had gone and called the other one mad to his face.

It was as John waited for sleep that he heard – or swore he heard – the faintest strain of a stringed instrument: a single long, melancholy note. When he finally drifted off, he dreamt that Niccolo Paganini challenged him to a duel, but neither of them could find a pistol or a sword anywhere at Thornfield, so they duelled with violin bows instead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is "oops I went to Maine and found myself without internet". Sorry for the belated update!

****

After breakfast the next morning, John saw his erstwhile rose garden companion, dressed for the weather, standing in the doorway to the house. 

“Good morning, John,” the tall man rumbled, barely glancing in John’s direction. 

“Good morning,” John returned. “Sherlock,” he added. 

“I’m called away from Thornfield,” Sherlock said, a touch of glee in his voice. He threw his hat on carelessly. “Won’t be back for a few days.” 

Before John could get out anything more, the door thudded shut around a swirl of black fabric. 

Then, it opened again, and a dark head reappeared. 

“Good day, John,” said Sherlock. 

“Ah, yes. The same to you, Sherlock.”

 

After that, John fell into something like a rhythm of living at Thornfield, though he did not ever manage to pass an entire night without a long, silent staring competition with the wardrobe in his bedroom. Sherlock disappeared for days at a time, but could be relied upon to materialise in the dining room whenever he fancied an after-dinner walk in the garden. Adele’s lessons proceeded apace, as the girl proved to be every bit as clever as John suspected. He allowed her to direct their course towards whatever area of physiology or biology she found most compelling on a given week. Which was why he found himself, nearly a month into his time at Thornfield, seated at a small tea table near the windows of the parlour, overlooking the rose garden, when Adele said, “I tried it a bit. With my fingers.”

Redness unfurled across John’s face. “You…” was all he managed.

“I wanted to know what it was like, of course. That should hardly come as a shock to you.”

The funny thing – or at least, what John would have thought was the funny thing, if he could see around the embarrassment clouding his vision – was that she was absolutely right. It was not uncommon at all for Adele to arrive at a lesson with addenda to the previous lesson, usually the products of her own practical application. After their last meeting, John had been so satisfied with himself for delivering a bland, perfectly schoolmasterly (which is to say deliberately _un_ titillating) lesson on the mechanics of reproduction, he had failed to consider Adele might proceed in her usual fashion as if it were any other lesson.   

“It isn’t very nice,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m surprised anyone ever does it unless they have to.”

For a terribly long moment, John’s mind went utterly, utterly blank. 

“I,” he said, helpfully. 

“Are you feeling feverish?” Adele asked. She sat up straighter now, watching his face with curiosity. “I know it isn’t usually the subject of polite conversation, but you seemed all right when we spoke of sex in lessons on Tuesday.”

John shook his head a few times, which he hoped would serve the dual purpose of reassuring his tutee and calming his thoughts. 

“It actually,” he tried to explain, “…isn’t.”

Adele watched him warily. 

“Right,” she confirmed. “It isn’t nice.”

_Have a little courage, Watson. You are her sole authority on the subject._ John wanted to slap himself. Or splash some cold water on his face, at the very least. He steadied his voice by sheer force of will. 

“It actually _can_ be quite good,” he said. 

At that, Adele piped up knowingly. “I’d have thought so as well,” she said. She brushed a stray bit of hair out of her face, clearly relieved that John was acting more normal. “Books do seem to imply that it might be exciting, between two people in love. Or that it might be very funny as well, if you’re reading Shakespeare. I feel I’m well-versed in sexual politics so far as literature goes, but empirical evidence is far more reliable, and unfortunately, Doctor Watson, I must tell you it really _isn’t_ nice at all.”

“Oh, God,” John mumbled. “I’ve said it all wrong, in entirely the wrong order, Adele; I really have. It _can_ be pleasant. It – it is nice.”

Adele’s trust in empiricism was not to be shaken, however. She folded her arms as though growing doubtful of John’s credentials as an educator. “You shouldn’t trust whatever you read, romantic though I know you are, Doctor Watson,” she demanded. “Have you tried it yourself?” 

John huffed indignantly. 

“Of course I’ve tried it!” he cried. Too loudly: the high-ceilinged room echoed his words back at him.

His tutee’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I did not mean to offend you,” she said, suddenly gentle. As though John’s idealism were something fragile she should step lightly around.

John subsided, feeling more than a little ridiculous. “No, no,” he said. placing both hands flat on the table, grounding himself. “I’m saying it all wrong all over again. Let me try to explain myself, I implore you, before we go any further.”

Adele considered, then nodded. John took a calming breath. He was immeasurably glad in this moment that Mrs. Fairfax had taken to giving his meetings with Adele a wide berth, having once entered the sitting room to deliver a letter in the middle of John’s explanation of vomiting.

“Procreation is only one of a number of functions of the organs we discussed yesterday,” he explained. “I should not have implied that it was their _only_ function. Your lesson,” he grimaced, “by my unfortunate design, neglected those other functions in favour of the one that is more easily explained in scientific terms.” 

“Why?” 

John looked ruefully at his hands. He was resolved now to be clear with her even in self-consciousness. He sighed at his tutee’s uncomprehending frown. “I’m afraid I am unaccustomed to speaking so candidly about these things.”

Adele frowned. “If not with one’s friends, then with whom is one expected to speak candidly?”

John’s head popped up at the word “friends.” Adele did not miss the surprise on his face. 

Her eyes dropped, and she fiddled self-consciously with the waves of hair that fell over her shoulder.  

“Aren’t we friends?”

A burst of affection in John’s heart made him forget his mortification. 

“Oh, damn it, of course we’re friends,” he said, taking her slim hand in his. “Forgive me. I have been an idiot.”

Cool fingers twitched against his, and he grinned.

“Let us start this lesson over entirely.”

 

John and Adele were at a table near the windows in the parlour, leaning their heads together and giggling.  

Speaking too low, that is, for Sherlock to hear what they had been talking about before he entered the room unannounced at precisely a half hour after John’s usual suppertime. Once inside, Sherlock strode impassively up to the windows. 

“Are neither of you hungry this evening?” he inquired pointedly.

When he turned, identical expressions of bafflement and slight embarrassment were mirrored on the two faces before him. John was the first to recover. 

“Yes,” he said, standing up from the table, fumbling to get his cane under him properly. “You are right to interrupt us, sir. I think we merely lost track of the time.” 

A beat of silence followed. Sherlock’s eyes had narrowed at the formality of “sir” and had stayed that way. He surveyed John’s stance, noting the way the doctor leaned heavily on his cane. 

“I’d hoped to entreat you with the proposition of an after-dinner brandy, but if you are occupied with other pursuits…”

“Of course, yes,” John said, surprise and possibly apprehension in his voice. He shot a glance at his pupil, but Adele did not speak. No new developments there. John, however, was visibly disconcerted by her reticence. Interesting. 

“Miss Varens?” asked the doctor. Her gaze swung towards him. “Do you wish to join us in the dining room, or will you take your evening meal privately?”

Interesting again. John’s question implied that Adele had enough strength these days to take some of her meals in the main dining room, rather than in bed. Not often, of course, since Sherlock had developed a habit of observing John at supper whenever he was not in the middle of an experiment or away from Thornfield, and he had not seen Adele there. Still, the fact that it happened at all showed progress, and Sherlock appreciated the doctor’s efficacy. 

Adele shook her head slightly, causing John to furrow his brow still further.

“Very well,” was all he said. His eyes flickered between the two of them. “Would you be so kind as to excuse me, then? And we may continue this discussion at your lessons tomorrow.” 

Adele nodded, rose, and dipped into a small, graceful curtsy, directed at Sherlock. A second curtsy was granted to John. 

 

After dinner, Sherlock and John retired to the library, where Sherlock poured two generous brandies. He gestured for John to be seated in one of the armchairs near the fireplace. 

“Thank you,” said John. Seeming unbothered by Sherlock’s scrutiny, he tilted the glass against his lips. 

Reflexively, Sherlock launched his mind into the recitation of a litany of facts which had nothing to do with the sweet pout of John’s lip: the doctor’s preference for whisky over brandy; his carelessness with the butter knife at breakfast; a flat, wide scar on the second knuckle of his left hand, possibly from a childhood accident with a door hinge. 

“What were you speaking of today with Adele?” Sherlock queried. 

A pleasing flush spilled up from the doctor’s collar. The answer was clear already, but Sherlock hypothesised that John would be amusing when he was embarrassed. 

“Mrs Fairfax assured me I should not hesitate to offer lessons on anything, even subjects not usually considered suitable for girls,” he said nervously. 

“She was right to do so,” Sherlock responded. He perched on the arm of the second chair, sideways, so that he was fully facing John and slightly above his eye level. “Still, I don’t believe I’ve ever found it necessary to sit so close together during an anatomy lesson.” 

“Yes, er. No, no, of course not,” stumbled the younger man, whose ears were reddening splendidly.

Sherlock could not hold back a smile. It was _too_ delightful, the blazing honesty of John’s embarrassment. Like emotions lay just under the surface of his skin, eager to be pricked. Sherlock couldn’t remember the last time he had felt his own cheeks warm with the sting of self-consciousness. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt his body do much of anything at all. 

“Never mind,” he said, hiding his delight behind disinterest. “Your embarrassment at the mere suggestion is enough to reassure me. Given the evidence, I conclude that if you held any aspirations to seduce her, you’d hardly be able to look me in the eye.”

Unfailing, John locked his eyes onto Sherlock’s. A thrill coursed up the back of Sherlock’s neck, and he chuckled, one hand draped across his midsection. 

John’s tongue peeked out at the corner of his mouth. 

“Am I being laughed at?” 

Sherlock clutched more tightly at his own waist. “Yes,” he said, not pretending to apologise. 

The sprite took refuge in another sip of his brandy, cheeks still burning scarlet.

“It’s –” 

“– an excellent brandy, yes, thanks. I shall endeavor to procure some equally good whisky, however, since you prefer it.” 

John shook his head, mouth ajar. “Amazing.” 

Sherlock shook his head back. “Obvious.”

Silence fell between them, though neither man was willing to be the first to break eye contact. John passed his tongue over his bottom lip three and a half times before Sherlock gave in. There was no doubt more data to be gathered on how long John would comfortably permit Sherlock to study him in silence, but any more data on John’s tongue in particular threatened to overwhelm. 

“You called me ‘sir,’ before.” Sherlock spoke abruptly, saying the first thing that came to mind. 

John looked contrite. “It seemed a moment in which it would behoove me to show due deference to our respective positions.”

Sherlock frowned. People were always much sharper-eyed with regard to their superiors than they were with people they considered to be friends. Gaining the doctor’s trust was the only way to secure his ignorance when it came to… certain things. 

So Sherlock said, bluntly, “I would prefer a social configuration in which you did not instinctively refer to me with formalities.” 

“Oh,” said John. 

Sherlock allowed the young man to steep in his own thoughts for a moment, while he rifled through his mental catalogue of human social behaviours. Eventually, he settled on an idea which seemed as good as any. 

“Share with me a confidence.” 

John started. Briefly, Sherlock wondered how long he had been silent. 

“It’s what people do, is it not? In order to become friends.” Sherlock attempted a bright smile. The sort of smile that would inspire confidence. 

In response, young Puck rose from his seat and shifted positions so that he mirrored Sherlock’s position, leaning sideways on the arm of his chair. He studied Sherlock’s expression, the now-frozen smile. 

“You know you’ve got to share one with me in return. Otherwise it doesn’t work.”

Mm. Yes, Sherlock imagined trust was the sort of thing people expected to go both ways. “Fine.” He thought for a moment. “I like to read.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched. “It ought to be something _personal_ , Sherlock.”

Against his will, Sherlock’s imagination supplied a vision of his name emerging from John’s mouth in curling script. It was distracting.

“Something you wouldn’t like just anyone and everyone to know,” John clarified, when Sherlock did not speak.

Sherlock chivvied his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “Yes,” he said, comprehending. With the air of handing over a personal diary, he murmured, “I like to read Keats.”

A fit of giggling was his reward, though Sherlock could not say that had been his intention. 

“My God, has no one in this place ever had a friend?” panted John. “I honestly can’t tell if you are being purposely thick or if you really think liking Keats is something you ought to keep a secret.”

“I imagine Mrs Fairfax has had a number of friends,” supplied Sherlock, curious to see if another demonstration of obtuseness would win him more giggles. 

Instead, John sobered. Capricious faerie. 

“Why _do_ you live like this?” he asked. 

“Perhaps I simply do not like people,” Sherlock shot back. Best to frighten the man off the subject as quickly as possible.

John was unswayed. “No, that’s not it,” he insisted. “You would like people, or at least some people, if you let yourself.”

Sherlock hoped to convey the ridiculousness of that statement with a delicate snort.

“You like me, for example.”

There again, the young doctor exhibited that unpredictable – and inadvertent, Sherlock hoped – acuity. 

“Can you be sure of that?” It was a feeble effort, though. Bright eyes laughed back at him again. 

“You are like a cat which is as loath to express its desire to be caressed as it is desperate for it. One does not demand acts of friendship from people one does not like, Sir Genius.”

Sherlock’s skin itched, though not in an altogether unpleasant way. "Do you intend to become my friend?" 

“I shall certainly try, if only out of curiosity about what it must be like to be a friend of Sherlock Holmes,” John answered lightly. 

 

Without intending to, Sherlock allowed John to squeeze out of him a number of major points in the story of his past, though he did retain the presence of mind to elide all references to his perversity. He described the odd turns of events that led to Adele’s orphaning and her travel from France into the lap of the Holmes brothers. He expressed in searing detail the cruel ridiculousness of Mycroft’s doctors’ efforts to incite the silent girl to speech. John actually growled at the mention of corporal punishment, and Sherlock ignored the unreasonable desire to cup John’s face in his hands. 

When the story had run its course, evening was well turned into night. John had been gratifyingly vocal with his reactions, and Sherlock realised the encouragement had caused him to draw out the telling, disclosing many more details than he originally intended. 

“Damned elf!” he cried, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. He waved his empty glass at the ornate grandfather clock. “Do your powers grow stronger at the onset of night? I’ve barely paused for breath for nearly two hours.” 

“Do not pretend you speak for any reason more than a love of hearing your own voice,” John retorted. His smooth face glowed with firelight. “That was a passable confidence, however,” he said cheekily. “I feel we are quite intimate now.”

It seemed Sherlock was going to have to keep a drink perpetually at hand to combat a severe recurring case of mouth dryness that his friendship with John promised to bring about. “You haven’t given me a confidence in return,” Sherlock reminded. His voice was only a little croaky, and John seemed not to notice. 

John rapped a finger against the side of his nose. “Right. How about this one: I did know a woman, before. Her name was Helen and I happily believed her to be the entire world.”

“Hm. Does it count as a confidence if I already know it?” 

“Of course it does, you horse’s arse, because I’m telling you not just what happened, but what was in my heart. What is in my heart is not visible from the outside.”

Sherlock begged to differ, but he kept his opinion to himself. It was uncharacteristic of him, but then so were at least twenty-two other things he had done in the last three hours. 

John spoke softly, his voice weaving in and out of the popping sound of the fire. “She was the wife of a man I knew, but he didn’t mind her coming to me from time to time. They were mutually agreed on seeking pleasure beyond the bounds of their marriage, though she never did tell me why.” He grinned. “I didn’t care. I was too grateful for the hours we stole in her rooms, utterly alone with one another.” He chuckled, ran a hand round his mouth. “Have you ever felt utterly, totally alone with another person? I felt that way with her. When the world is with us, we are always such warped, uneven portraits of ourselves. With Helen I felt I could be perfectly full and unbroken and mindless of my own shape.” 

Startling himself entirely, Sherlock sighed. Not his usual lungs-deep, nasal sigh of exasperation, either. It was something shallow and soft, a wayward cloud of cool air that he caught and held in his mouth.

“Well, I,” Sherlock cleared his throat, “I’m… I’m sorry that she died.” He was disconcerted to realise that it was the truth. He _was_ sorry – an odd little emotion which offered no useful solution to the fact that the woman was irreversibly dead. Half unconsciously, Sherlock prodded the leftish side of his own sternum with a single long finger. 

John grimaced or smiled – Sherlock could not quite see which – into the very last sip of his brandy.

“Thank you,” he said.


	6. Chapter 6

John took drinks with Sherlock in the library a handful more times after that before it began to feel routine. In the daytime, Adele’s lessons came along nicely, as did John’s gradual exploration of her physical capacities and incapacities. To pass the time when Adele was resting, Sherlock was as good as invisible, and Mrs Fairfax was occupied, he sorted the daily mysteries of Thornfield Hall into two categories: in one column, the solvable ones, and in another, the ones a wiser sort of man would steer well away from.

One afternoon, for instance, John realised he had never seen the east wing of the house. He got as far as the bottom step before Sherlock materialised at his side. 

“Do not go up there.” Sherlock took John’s forearm in a grasp which brooked no protest and pulled him back down to the ground level. 

John stuttered nervously, but managed to say he was very sorry. 

“Does no one use the rooms on the east side of the house?” he asked Adele later. 

“Oh, no,” Adele answered. “The east wing is forbidden.”

“Do real people have forbidden wings in their houses?” was all John could think to ask.

 

With regard to the mysteries on the “solvable” side of John’s mental tally, one particularly illuminating conversation occurred just after Christmas. (Christmas itself had passed in and out of Thornfield with minimal fanfare. John hadn’t seen Sherlock once, and when he brought a ribbon to Adele as a gift, she had looked at him as if he had walked in wearing ribbons in his own hair and singing “Sigh no more ladies.”)

On this particular afternoon, John was supporting Adele’s arm on a walk up and down the main staircase, an exercise to strengthen her legs. 

“You stopped speaking, that day Sherlock burst into lessons,” he recalled, casually.

Adele’s clear, lyric tones echoed from the ceiling to the floor. “It has always been that way between us,” she told him, eyes cast upward to her goal, the top of the stairs. “I can’t speak to him any more than I could speak to the doctors who came before you.”

John considered. “Have you ever known anyone your own age? Anyone at all?” At Adele’s wry glance, he amended, “Aside from me, as you insist on considering us the same age.”

Adele acknowledged his concession with a tilt of her head. 

“Yes, but not since I came here,” she answered. “Not since I was very small.”

“And could you speak to them? Other children?”

She hummed an affirmative. “I had a friend, Lucy, who would convey messages to the servants for me. To my parents as well, sometimes.”

John absorbed this. “Were your other doctors very much older than I am?”

Adele delivered a one-sided shrug with the arm not looped into John’s. “Yes,” she reflected. “And I didn’t like them. They spoke to me as though I was a baby. Or a girl.” Vexed by John’s answering chuckle, Adele pinched his wrist. “Don’t laugh,” she warned. “I know I am a bit of a baby.”

“And a bit of a girl,” John supplied. 

At that, she sighed and made to let go of his arm. 

John allowed her to move away, but kept a hand hovering behind her, just as a precaution. They reached the top, however, without incident, and on the way down John nudged her side with his elbow, gently. “Is it really so bad, to be a girl?” 

She hummed, accepting the apology. 

“No,” she conceded, “not most of the time, anyway. But people always seem to want to _remind_ you of being a girl. As though you’re never free to simply _be_.” 

In the end, they were agreed that there was little John could do to help her being a girl, but he did tell her he felt nearer to unlocking the secret of her unwilling tongue. 

 

All in all, John felt he was learning his way around Thornfield rather quickly. It was, therefore, all the more embarrassing that it took him as long as it did to realise his rooms shared a corridor with Sherlock’s. If he had ever thought of it, he had always envisioned Sherlock inhabiting a dark, elaborate bedchamber buried somewhere deep in the house, accessible only by a warren of corridors and, possibly, secret passageways. It was disconcerting to find instead that the man apparently just had a few rooms right across from John’s own. 

The revelation occurred when, one evening shortly after dinnertime (at which Sherlock had not made an appearance), there was a loud bang from down the corridor. John rushed to the hallway, leaving a letter to his sister mid-sentence. 

A red-faced man stormed out and either ignored John or simply did not see him there. He was yelling, waving his hands in Sherlock’s face. 

Indifferent to the tirade, Sherlock merely bellowed for Mrs Fairfax. He fluttered a hand in the direction of the stairs.

“Mr Camperdown would like to be escorted to his carriage now, Mrs Fairfax,” he directed, speaking over the man’s head. With utmost aplomb, he rotated enraged Mr Camperdown on the spot and gave him a helpful nudge. “Be sure to avoid questioning him with regard to the scar behind his left ear.” His voice fairly wobbled with condescension.

Mrs Fairfax herded the spluttering Mr Camperdown away while Sherlock strode after them.

“Do check under her pillow the next time!” he called down the stairs.

“You’re a bloody devil, you –”

At which Mrs Fairfax clucked loudly. There was a bit of the sound of a brief scuffle and then the very firm thwack of a door closing. 

Sherlock spun, making as little note of John’s presence as Mr Camperdown himself had done, and swept back into the doorway at the far end of the corridor.

Not a moment later, though, the dark head popped out again. Grey eyes unwaveringly settled on John, who was still immobile in his own bedroom doorway. 

“That man’s got an irrational fear of glass bottles,” Sherlock supplied. “Intriguing, no?”

 

Not more than a week later, they were halfway through a lesson on lenses when Adele dropped her book on the table and placed an open hand on John’s forearm. 

“Will you marry me?” she asked.

“Er,” said John. 

“Though I think losing you as my tutor would be hateful,” she mused. “If we were married, would you continue to give me lessons? Or would you seek employment elsewhere? I’m fairly certain my income might be sufficient for us both to live on, but I worry that you would be bored without something to do with your time. Or you would feel badly for accepting my money.”

John utterly shocked himself by sounding totally unruffled. “Perhaps,” he answered, shuffling the books around on the table, “we ought not to decide anything rashly.”

The hand on his arm went back to its book. “That’s sensible.”

That night, John lay in bed, folding and refolding Helen’s letters one by one, running his fingers over their creases. He spent the better part of an hour deciding how to tell Adele, in the gentlest terms possible, that his was to be the life of a confirmed bachelor.  

He woke with his face smashed into a pillow, the fabric wet and clinging to his cheeks.  Another nightmare – the same one he had never stopped having since losing Helen. It wasn't so much a proper dream as a rapid succession of moments, the sped-up version of her last days and the washed-out grey nothing that followed in her wake. He saw Helen, in his arms, coughing breathlessly. He felt Helen's husband, William, drawn but detached, patting him on the shoulder. The frantic rush of his own voice, speaking the list of her symptoms to everyone who could hear him: maids, visitors, his own sister. Hoping that somebody would know better than he did, would tell him his diagnosis was wrong, would teach him how to fix her. But in the end, every time, there was only Helen again, blank and pale and still in her bed. 

The scenes flashed past in an endless loop, as though he had been strapped in his seat and forced to watch a tireless troupe of players put on the whole fragmented drama again and again. There was something new in it this time as well: an odd slithering sound, like fabric being drawn over carpet, weaving in and out of the whole thing. The ominous repetition pierced him, pinned him, threatened to overtake him, until at last, with a ragged gasp, John pulled himself to the surface.

He rolled away from the soiled pillow, tugging the neck of his nightshirt up to rub away the last of the tears. _Damn. Damn, damn, damn._

He would never get back to sleep now, so he gave in and sat up in bed. He glared for a bit at the wardrobe, glad for once to have a physical object to make the object of his ire. That quickly grew too ominous for his comfort, however. 

Nobody would be up for hours. John didn’t know what to do to fill the time. Aimlessly, he pulled a coverlet from his bed and shuffled into the corridor. The air out here was colder than in his room, in which the embers of one of Mrs Fairfax's expertly stoked fires still glowed. John took several deep breaths, enjoying the nighttime silence.

Which broke almost immediately, with a faint but undeniable _pop_ and the buzz of a deep voice, a rapid-fire murmuring that could only be Sherlock's. John took an instinctive step or two towards the sound. As he got closer, he thought he detected the tiniest clinking of metal against glass, like something being stirred. 

The half-heard noises drew him in and before he knew it, he was very nearly huddled against Sherlock's door. There were bursts of words he could not quite make out, punctuated with clacks and, once, the low whoosh of a bellows. Too glad of the distraction to feel sorry for eavesdropping, he let himself simply drift in the muffled chaos. He let his mind make vague guesses at the contraptions Sherlock might be juggling on the other side of the door, the unfathomable conclusions he might be drawing.

As he stood that way, the heavy thrall of John's nightmare began to lift, and he sighed, letting his forehead fall against the wood.

 

Some time later, he woke to the sound of a shout. It took several seconds for him to recognise it as his name. 

“John!” 

The voice rang loudly in his ears, resonant and... awfully close. A hand gripped the side of his face, none too gently, and he was shocked at its warmth. He had just got round to realising his eyes were still closed when the voice came again. 

“John! God, no, damn it. Wake _up_ , John.”

And John remembered. The events of the night came back to him: the nightmare, the corridor, the comforting sounds of Sherlock's experiments. Sluggishly, he willed his eyes to open, not because he particularly wanted to, but because Sherlock seemed to think it was important. Sherlock's pale face, dimly lit by a taper he held clutched in his hand, swam into view. 

“’S cold,” John mumbled. 

Sherlock's features scrunched into an expression of unmitigated anger. 

“ _Idiot_ ,” he accused. "It's bloody freezing out here. What were you doing in only your night clothes?"

It really was freezing, John realised unhappily. His legs were bare and stretched wantonly out in front of him, his back flat against the cold wall, just to the side of Sherlock's door. His limbs felt numb and heavy, his mind equally so. The coverlet he had pulled from his bed was nowhere to be seen. 

“It's all right. I'm fine,” he meant to say. What came out was only a breathy, “...ffffine.” He stared up into Sherlock's face, hoping to convey the rest of the message that way. The hand on his cheek was blazing hot. Distracting. 

Sherlock's mouth moved in an odd way when he spoke. Usually so elastic, it lay now in a flat, rigid line, as though Sherlock was purposely keeping himself from showing any expression at all. 

“You aren't fine,” he said. “You looked like you were dead.”

John thought he might be succeeding at raising his eyebrows. Speech seemed too difficult to bother with. 

“I'm moving you to your bed,” Sherlock informed him. “If you won't help then at least don't try and stop me.”

John shook his head.

“Yes,” said Sherlock. He pulled John's arm over his shoulders and hoisted him to a standing position. 

There was a moment, however, in which Sherlock had to release his grip to switch the candle from one hand to the other, and John took full advantage of it. He rolled sideways, pinning his captor to the wall with the sheer weight of his body. Amazingly, Sherlock managed to keep the hand holding the candle steady enough not to set either of them on fire. 

John felt contrary. He did not want to go back to his bed. He especially did not want to now that he had been _told_ to do so. So, instead, he obeyed his first impulse, which was to seek out as much of Sherlock's lovely body heat as possible.

Sherlock was in his usual clothes, not dressed for bed, and John’s numb hands fumbled to reach past the thick fabric. Sherlock stood utterly still as John tried, failed, and then finally managed to tuck his hands into the small of Sherlock's back, beneath his jacket and waistcoat. John sighed, pressed his face into Sherlock's neck, and vaguely thought that Sherlock might just be the warmest marble statue he had ever touched. 

John never knew how long they stood that way, but eventually he was conscious of a slow-moving embarrassment, beginning in a distant corner of his brain and growing by degrees. Sherlock’s posture so rigid beneath him, the man was hardly breathing. The arm with the depleted candle _must_ have been tiring, stuck out awkwardly to the side, but he kept it there, clearly unwilling to risk touching John any more than John was already touching him.

John fought off off the lethargy of his body, found the leverage to snap his head up, pulled his face away from the (now mortifying) warmth of Sherlock’s skin.

“Sorry,” he murmured, wondering what he could possibly say now to explain himself. He hadn't meant to be found, for God's sake. He had only meant to close his eyes for a minute or two. And where on earth had his coverlet got to? Only his thin nightshirt separated the entire front of his body from that of his employer. 

“Please go to bed.” Sherlock didn't meet John's eyes. His voice was little more than a whisper. 

“I can't,” John whispered back. “My leg.”

Sherlock continued to stare ahead fixedly, but he nodded once. He nudged the candle into John's left hand and then slung John's right arm over his shoulders. His grip on John's waist was firm. 

They made their way to John's room without incident, and Sherlock deposited him in his bed with precise, efficient movements. Before John could gather his wits to thank him, Sherlock was gone.

 

Much as John spent the next day hoping Sherlock would have forgotten the entire thing, he knew confronting things straight away was the best course of action. He thought he might die of awkwardness if they never spoke of it again. He resolved to broach the subject immediately, the moment Sherlock next appeared.

It was, of course, that very day of all days that Thornfield received its first guest in all the time John had been there. It was a proper guest, too; not a disgruntled solicitor or a boy delivering something from town. She was an older woman, slight and elegant and resplendent in purple. Mrs Fairfax introduced her as Mrs Emma Hudson. 

When John gave a polite bow and tried to hide an apprehensive glance upstairs, Mrs Hudson smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, Doctor Watson,” she said. “He always knows when I am here, and he’ll never pass up an opportunity to scold me for coming.”

They sat down to dinner without the master of the house, however. John enquired after her travels, to be polite, but it was not long before he found himself asking, “And what, if you don’t mind me asking, is your connection to Mr Holmes?”

The small woman swallowed a sip of wine. 

“I am his aunt,” she explained. “And so I remain unsurprised by his habits. How have you found him?” This she asked with an air of not being quite certain she wanted to know the answer. 

“He’s unbelievable,” John supplied immediately. “Brilliant.”

It was only because Mrs Hudson was giving him a quizzical look that John realised he was grinning broadly. In counterpoint to his, the corners of her mouth pulled downward.

“My nephew, though he has always been dearer to me than he believes, has never been one to easily acquire the affections of others.” She paused, searching John’s face, giving him the distinct sensation that he was being tested.

Something in his expression must have appeased her, though, for she nodded as though they had agreed to something and turned to her food. John exhaled for what felt like the first time in minutes. 

“What was he like, when he was small?” John asked, suddenly curious. He tried to imagine a young Sherlock Holmes, soft curls spilling over his forehead instead of combed and tamed as they were now. 

But Mrs Hudson gave a sad smile. 

“He was a sullen, patient child,” she said. “Other children’s pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident and nobody was to blame.” 1

The image of a young, smiling Sherlock evaporated. John’s heart cracked a little. Had there been no one to protect him from the taunts of others?

Mrs Hudson took a breath as though to say more, but before she could, the man himself interrupted by sweeping into the room. 

“Ah, Sherlock,” greeted Mrs Hudson, not so much as batting an eye. “Tell me, dear, did I see an _actual_ disjointed animal skull strewn on the carpet in the corridor?”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “You’re not my housekeeper.” He circled the enormous table to lean casually against the wall beside the fireplace, crossing his arms. “Tell _me_ , dear aunt,” he intoned, “what brings you to my home?”

Mrs Hudson’s gaze fell and she waved a blue-veined hand. 

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know. I do not glean pleasure from your displeasure, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Automatically, John spoke up. “I’m sure that’s not what Sh–  Mr –“ 

“Lovely, John, thanks for the effort,” Sherlock interrupted. At the doctor’s given name, Mrs. Hudson raised both eyebrows. “It is, however, unnecessary. My aunt understood my question perfectly.”

He straightened abruptly, then strode to the table. Without a sideways glance, he sank into the seat next to John and then took refuge in pointedly staring across at his aunt. To make what point, exactly, John remained unclear. Mrs Hudson, on the other hand, seemed to receive the message without impediment. There was a nod and a quirk of her mouth – so fleeting John could not hope to read what it contained – and Mrs Hudson returned to eating as though it was just another evening meal. 

“This winter is terribly cold, isn’t it?” she mused. “I’m very much looking forward to the spring.”

Sherlock spoke not a word for the rest of dinner, and John was forced to bear a full half of the conversation while trying very hard not to be derailed by the glowering heat radiating from the man at his elbow. 

Before too long, Mrs Hudson took her leave, despite John’s strenuous protestations. As soon as her coach had departed, John rounded on his friend.

“It is bloody _cold as ice_ out there, Sherlock,” he exclaimed. “And she’s got miles to ride before they stop for the night!” 

Sherlock’s face was impassive. 

“Perfectly sound analysis,” he commented, those odd blank eyes trained somewhere just above John’s head. 

John strained up onto his toes, lending much of his weight to the cane, trying valiantly to make his point. “A woman of her age, traveling in the cold of night, when she could have easily taken a room in this vast place? Doesn’t that strike you as cruel?”

Sherlock scoffed. “If she would only choose not to inflict herself upon me in the first place, the journey would not be necessary in either direction.” His eyebrows drew together. “You hardly know her,” he commented. “Why should you care?”

Sharp annoyance boiled up John’s body and it was all he could do to keep from taking his friend by the collar and shaking him. Embarrassment from the night before was thoroughly forgotten now. 

“You’re angry with me.” The depth of that fathomless voice seemed to send vibrations through the very floor. 

John fairly bounced in his restiveness. “You were horrible to that utterly lovely woman, Sherlock. She cares for you, and all you could give her in return were biting words and cold silence.”

Nothing in his friend’s expression betrayed repentance. “She spies on me for my brother,” said Sherlock, stepping nearer to the window. His long nose nearly touched the windowpane, and a splotch of white crawled over the dark glass where his breath fell across it. 

“The brother you thought might’ve sent me as an assassin to remove you from the family history.” John jabbed the fingers of his free hand into his eyes and rubbed firmly. The melodrama this man was capable of was truly unmatched. 

Sherlock’s eyes coolly tracked the path of Mrs Hudson’s carriage. 

“You don’t know my brother.” 

“It isn’t about your sodding brother, Sherlock.” Sherlock harrumphed. The condensation on the windowpane billowed outward. “She only loves you,” John insisted. “If you can see the fraying of my damn pocket, surely you can see that, too.”

John could only see a bit of Sherlock’s reflection, but he could see enough to notice a dark, thick eyebrow arching upward. 

“Your idealism in matters of so-called _love_ is... persistent.” 

There was a long, silent pause. 

John was the first to break it. "I know by now her carriage is well out of sight,” he said, curiously. “What are you still looking at?”

There was another pause, different this time. John could see Sherlock’s shoulders shift beneath his jacket, first one and then the other.  

“I was expecting you to storm away.” 

John snickered. “You were expecting me to storm away.”

Sherlock crossed his arms. 

“And you thought you’d just stand there facing the dark ‘til I was gone, did you? What sort of novel do you think we’re in?” A giggle made its way into John’s voice, and he gave into it, clasping a hand loosely over his mouth. The eyebrow he could still see reflected seemed to waver uncertainly, which only made him laugh harder.  

“Be quiet,” said Sherlock. “You’re an idiot.”

John shook his head vehemently. “ _You’re_ an idiot,” he wheezed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A footnote:  
> 1\. This line has been lent to me by another Brontë. "He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident and nobody was to blame." 
> 
> In other news, I am sad to report that Real Life has intervened and I won't be able to keep to my weekly posting schedule. Instead, I shall aim for a biweekly schedule. Thanks so much for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I've wandered into another novel that is not the one I started with. Back to Jane Eyre proper, soon, I swear. 
> 
> Thanks so much for being patient with my altered posting schedule. Biweekly schedule to continue until further notice!

Sherlock was pacing the hallways of his mind palace, tidying as he went, when he noticed a scent. Mentally, he was surrounded by types of tobacco ash, and something was seriously out of place because it smelled oddly as though someone was making toffee. He furrowed his brow, surveyed his files again, even popped into the adjacent rooms to verify that there were no errant dessert recipes in with pipes and woodsmoke, either. 

Sherlock opened his eyes. 

“There’s one mystery of Thornfield Hall solved,” said John. He nodded towards the violin at Sherlock’s chin. “My dreams have been set to violin music for weeks.”

Sherlock blinked. John’s appearance in the library in the middle of the night was of interest, but the tug of the unfinished tobacco ash review kept him with one foot in the mind palace and one foot out.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” John went on, apparently unbothered by Sherlock’s failure to speak. “Would you mind it if I sat and listened for a little while?”

After the frankly embarrassingly lengthy moment it took for him to process the question, Sherlock managed half a shrug.

So John settled himself in a chair near the fire, and Sherlock stepped back into the mind palace. He finished the tobacco ash with unusual efficiency and rather rushed the remainder of his tour. Still, he fully expected John to have gone by the time he returned to himself. 

To Sherlock’s surprise, he opened his eyes again to the sight of the doctor, head tilted back, mouth loosely puckered. The evenness of his breathing confirmed that he slept. 

Studying John was incredibly diverting. Sherlock stood for a long moment, unmoving, counting the wrinkles in John’s shirt. It appeared Puck had not been to bed yet: this was not a new shirt donned to investigate the sound of violin music, it was a shirt he had worn since morning. Reluctance to go to bed, then. It was of a piece with what Sherlock had been able to piece together so far regarding John’s sleeping patterns. Or, more accurately, his lack of them.

Sherlock’s working theory was that John suffered from sleepwalking and nightmares, both tied to his loneliness in the wake of the death of his lover, Lucy. 

No, that wasn’t right. Lucy... _lux..._ Lucifer...

Obviously not. Perhaps he had taken a wrong turn. Not Lucifer. Hell, then? Hell... _Hellas_... revolution. Byron. Feet. 

He shook his head. This was only getting further off course. The name wasn’t important anyway. 

Over the past few days, Sherlock had spent a not insignificant amount of time regretting that, on the night John had inexplicably tried to freeze himself to death outside Sherlock’s bedchamber, anxiety had kept him from fully appreciating the wealth of data made available by John being so close. Now, it seemed, he might have a second chance. 

Tentatively, Sherlock stepped nearer to the chair, letting his shoes rasp on the carpet. Watching carefully for a response, he swished the violin bow in a wide arc, letting its tip pass directly in front of John’s nose. He did it again, faster this time, and added a swirl in the air, tracing an invisible halo around John’s head. 

The lines of John’s face remained soft. Not so much as a twitch of his eyelashes. Sherlock let out a breath, slowly, so as not to chuckle. The difficulty John had finding sleep in his (perfectly well-constructed, lushly-blanketed) bed apparently did not extend to hallways or high-backed chairs. Unusual. Illogical.

Sherlock moved closer still, pausing to put his violin aside on another chair. He stood squarely in front of the sleeping doctor and bent at the waist, putting their faces level with one another. He blew a puff of air into John’s face, which made John’s eyelids tighten briefly, but which provoked no response otherwise. 

Sherlock raised a hand and let it hover next to John’s face. His fingers curved to the shape of John’s jaw, but he did not close the distance. Before, in the hallway, John’s skin had been cool, frighteningly cool, beneath his palm. Now, Sherlock relished the warmth, the healthy, living warmth that radiated from his friend’s cheek. 

Minutely, John’s head turned to the side, towards Sherlock’s palm. The movement was tiny, certainly just the natural movement of a body asleep, but Sherlock’s hand tingled all the same. He felt the brush of John’s breath on his wrist. 

Then, a quick, terrified kind of delight flashed through him as John’s head fell to the side, rolling against the upholstery of the chair to drop his cheek into Sherlock’s fingers. Sherlock very nearly laughed out loud. His hand was ridiculous: ghostly and overlarge against John’s ruddy skin, his compact jaw. He wished, oddly, that John could see it, too. 

His fingers flexed, one after the other, making shallow indentations in John’s skin. With a little shifting, Sherlock’s little finger crept around to the soft, shadowed place just behind John’s earlobe. His thumb wandered gently to the corner of John’s mouth and, in a surge of bravery, into the center of John’s protruding lower lip. 

Oh, this night was heaven. Sherlock revelled in the sweet smell of him, which, yes, even up close still hinted at the toasted-nut flavour of toffee. His hand fell from John’s face to the arm of the chair, stabilising him as he leaned in, his nose drawing him towards the blond hair in sleepy disarray atop John’s head. 

There was a moment in which Sherlock soared on the sheer bliss of a skirmish between the tip of his nose and a tuft of John’s wayward hair. Then, everything lurched sideways as John’s head jerked forward to crash into Sherlock’s chin. 

Sharp pain flooded him and Sherlock gasped. An instinctively clenched fist swung blindly, popping John across the temple. John yipped, voice cracking on the sudden transition from sleep to waking, and arms wrapped around Sherlock’s waist at the same time that a shoulder took him firmly in the stomach. 

Knocked backward, Sherlock tried to squirm out of John’s grip, but his arse took the brunt of the impact all the same. In the scramble that followed, the young doctor managed, more by chance than by intention, to land firmly wedged between Sherlock’s thighs, hips pinning hips, forearms braced from wrist to elbow on the taller man’s chest. 

Heaven was quickly bleeding into its opposite. Sherlock felt his body respond to as though it were a lover’s weight bearing him down, instead of the sleep-addled young doctor it actually was. His muscles went slack with misguided, misplaced pleasure. His legs fell open of their own accord, only too willing to allow John this close instead of fighting to dislodge him like any normal man would. Sherlock turned his face away, ashamed of the way he couldn’t help memorising John even now, the press of his belly, the cadence of his breath slowing as the initial surprise wore off.

“...Sherlock?” John sounded genuinely surprised. 

Sherlock opened his eyes. “You fell asleep,” he reminded. Perhaps John’s slumber had made him forget his surroundings.

An intake of breath above him confirmed Sherlock’s hypothesis. 

“You were playing the violin,” John recalled. 

Sherlock nodded, prayed that John had not noticed their positions when he first woke.

“Sorry,” John said, and _laughed._ His ribs stuttered against Sherlock’s. “The other night –” he broke off, giggling. “And – and now this...” His body was limp and heavy atop Sherlock’s, quivering with helpless mirth. “I promise you I have never attacked a person for trying to wake me up before,” he managed to say, before succumbing again to hysterics.

The laughing spell lasted for an eternity. Spurts of breath shot across Sherlock’s left ear, maddening and warm. 

Eventually, _finally_ , John collected himself enough to move. He shifted backwards, smoothly rocking up onto his knees. From there, he held out a hand, and Sherlock allowed himself to be pulled to a seated position. 

“Lucky you’re not much cop at fighting back, eh?” John asked with a grin. 

Sherlock felt his cheeks flush, but as he studied John’s face, he didn’t find malice. The man genuinely thought the whole situation was funny. Not repulsive, not perverse –

John broke into Sherlock’s train of thought once more. “I suppose I should apologise for being so forward,” he said. His eyes matched the firelight, dancing beneath the sheen of tears his fit had caused. “It was never my intention to ensnare you in such compromising positions.”

Sherlock’s heart broke a little. Blasted sincerity shone, sterling and bright, in John’s every word. 

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “No, of course not.” 

 

Next morning, Sherlock watched from his window as John methodically chipped a hole into the frozen ground, beneath the wide branches of the oak tree. It was early, and the sunlight hit John from the side, making his hair shine golden. Sherlock wondered when John had stumbled across the gardening tools, and then wondered how much exploring he got up to in his time alone. Perhaps some increased supervision would be advisable, lest John grow too adventuresome.

Sherlock shivered, wrapped his dressing gown more tightly. He usually slept through this hour, when he did sleep. Now, he was glad to have risen early.

John’s posture stated his intentions in detail. Shoulders pulled back, spine upright: this was meant to be a solitary sort of ceremony. Sherlock hoped nobody else was watching. He wanted the moment for himself, wanted to be alone in knowing what John's hair looked like just now, catching the light. He wanted to be sole caretaker of the crinkle in John's lip, the kiss John pressed to the lid of the jar he drew out of his coat and then dropped into the ground. 

It was love letters, almost undoubtedly. If John were burying something incriminating, he would hardly take the care to entomb it in a jar, and he would definitely not stand staring at it for several minutes, shivering in that stupid threadbare coat. John, it would appear, was trying to lay his lost love to some kind of rest. 

Perhaps John was embarrassed by having had an audience – twice, now – for his nighttime restlessness. He probably thought putting the letters into the ground would set his mind at ease. Sentiment. 

Sherlock thought that if it were anybody else, he might find the whole thing useless. Watching sweet, unmasked solemnity drift over John’s features, however, held him rapt. He was glad for his keen memory, for he wanted to remember this entire scene, exactly as it was. A beautiful man and his love letters, all sunlight and patches of snow, framed in the chilly glass of the windowpane. The memory might provide Sherlock some comfort, in future days, when John had gone on to wherever he was destined, and Sherlock returned to his customary solitude.

He could see John’s life unspooling from this moment: his sorrow turning to cherished memory, his melancholy aging gracefully into dry skepticism. The lines round his mouth and his eyes would deepen, but those eyes would never change. A woman, eventually, who would convince him to marry after all, would love him for the incongruence of stoic sarcasm coupled with Puckish dancing eyes. The inevitable children, whom he would love but never quite understand, being more naturally inclined towards people his own age. 

Everything that would happen to him was already in the process of happening, invisibly drawing him forward into the future.

Sherlock wanted to shield him. Wanted to follow at his heels and step out in front of him and absorb the blows of every unhappy thing that befell him along the way. 

Below, John had succeeded in filling in the hole he had carved out, and he bent down, folding at the waist, to press his hand a final time to the ground, just over where the jar of letters lay. The hem of his coat slipped upward. 

Ah. Well. It was, of course, naïve to think Sherlock could have kept hold of such an idyll without his own perverse nature intervening to taint the whole thing. As trousers pulled taut over John’s legs, Sherlock wished, fruitlessly, that he could keep himself from noticing John’s thighs, thin but muscular. His calves, tensing to keep his balance and to keep his weight off the bad knee. The tendril of warmth that curled through him was undeniable. It wasn’t lust, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t purely aesthetic admiration, either. 

Annoyed, Sherlock punished himself by drawing back from the window, removing the young doctor from his sight. He threw himself back into bed and endeavoured to sleep until his usual hour of rising after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say last time as well: thanks very sincerely much to Iriya for the beta!


	8. Chapter 8

“Sherlock really is a genius, isn’t he?”

Adele looked up from the book in her lap. She was propped up in bed, leaning against a neat stack of pillows. After a few consecutive days of long walks out of doors, she had developed a small cough, so John had insisted on a more restful schedule today. 

John cleared his throat. He had not really intended to speak aloud. He was supposed to have been reading as well, but he had no sooner settled into his customary chair than his thoughts had wandered in the same direction they seemed always to be wandering lately. 

“I mean, not just with the deductions, knowing people’s history at a glance,” he babbled, filling the silence. “Though that alone is brilliant.” Adele raised her eyebrows. “It’s the experiments, and the violin, and the mathematics and the science; all of it. It’s – I’ve never –” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “He’s _one_ man,” he said at last. “But it’s like he’s got ten thousand brains in his head.”

“He has, I think.” Adele gave a small smile. “He argues with himself all the time. And it’s not just ‘should I go to dinner now’ and ‘no, I’ll wait a little longer,’ either. He _debates_. Law and empire, politics and proofs. Sometimes he has the same debate for days at a time.”

John’s book drooped in his fingers, forgotten now. He supposed he should find such a practice at least a little odd, but, as was proving to be the rule with Sherlock, what should have been odd seemed marvellous instead. 

“I’ve never seen him do that,” he told her. “What a sight that must be.” Sherlock would talk while pacing, he imagined. The image of Sherlock spinning and gesticulating on the ice, that very first night, came to mind. John had never since seen the man so energetic, so unbridled.

Adele looked sheepish. “I wouldn’t actually know,” she admitted. “Only I used to listen outside his chamber door.”

John felt his cheeks flush. Evidently Sherlock had that effect on people.

Adele’s gaze on him was sharp, searching. “I imagine he feels similarly.” At John’s enquiring look, she explained, “That you’re brilliant.”

That surprised a laugh out of John. 

“Yes,” he returned drily. “The genius scientist-musician-philosopher admires the permanently injured man he thinks he has employed as a governess.”

But when he looked up, Adele was frowning. “I should think, after the number of people who tried and failed to be my governess, that alone should be counted no small feat.” She allowed a chilly pause, pursing her lips. A faint pink had begun to spill over her cheeks. John began to feel even less brilliant than he had before. “And another thing. There are those of us who have never so much as dreamt of being invited into his stupid library, so do not underestimate the impression you claim not to have made on him.”

John laid a careful hand on the edge of her bed. “I didn’t think –”

“Mm,” Adele cut him off with a soft noise of agreement. 

They sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“I think I’ll go to sleep now,” she said at last.

John understood it for the dismissal it was. Thoroughly chastised, he rose and gathered his book and jacket. In the doorway, he paused. “It was stupid of me to say,” he said. “I am really very honoured to be your governess. Or whatever I am. Your friend.”

The line of Adele’s mouth tipped sideways, decidedly not a smile, but an acknowledgement. John nodded, and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. 

He passed the time until dinner with a long walk (and a long think) out of doors. The grounds seemed nearly trembling, eager for winter to be done, and he couldn’t help but return to the house in lighter spirits. Renewed by the fresh air, John was resolved to speak to Sherlock about proceeding with regard to Adele’s well-being. He had, after all, been putting it off for long enough, made cowardly by a fear of Sherlock’s refusal. 

Most importantly, he owed it to Adele, who could not ask for such things herself. He would say something as soon as possible. At the very next opportunity, the moment he saw Sherlock. 

John probably would have succeeded in his resolve, too, except that Sherlock made his next entrance that very evening by throwing himself sideways into the room, coat and hair bedraggled. John, five minutes into his dinner, sprang immediately to his feet. 

“What –”

“Idiots!” Sherlock bellowed. He spun on his heel and the coat flapped half-heartedly. It looked – and John was no deductive genius, so he allowed he might be wrong – but it really looked as though Sherlock had been dipped into water, clothes and all, and then left to dry in the sun.

John tried again. 

“What –”

“The _most likely_ explanation,” Sherlock continued at volume, “was that they were lovers. It was utterly _logical._ ”

Vexed into silence, John continued to stand beside his barely-touched dinner, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing.

“Furthermore!” Sherlock yelled. “I never actually said they _were_ lovers; I only allowed that it was _one_ of the possible scenarios.” He pirouetted at the edge of the room and stormed back towards the end where John was standing. 

A truly incensed Sherlock Holmes, John thought, might be the most sublime sight he had ever encountered. The man was magnificent, and, of course, John had not the airiest wisp of a notion of what he was talking about. Sherlock was passing in front of him again now, each step landing angrily on the floor. He was still talking, but John’s attention had refocused on his temple, where he thought – if Sherlock would just stand _still_ – he could see a slash of dull red, mostly obscured amongst dark curls of hair. 

Working quickly, John let his gaze travel down Sherlock’s form, watched closely the way he turned when he ran out of floor to stomp over and headed back towards the far end of the room. A jolt of anxiety travelled through him as he noticed the way Sherlock’s arms were held tight to his body, not gesticulating as he was usually wont to do.

“Sherlock!” John cried. Fear spurred him onwards, added a sharp edge to his voice.

Sherlock showed no sign of hearing him, his strident baritone still rolling onwards. John took off at a run, circling the enormous table as quickly as he could. 

“Sherlock!” John came to a stop directly in Sherlock’s path. 

The startled look on his friend’s face, in any other situation, would have been something to savour. But John did not miss the way Sherlock stopped short, arms wrapped gingerly round his waist. 

“What’s happened to you?” John demanded. 

Sherlock blinked. He glanced downwards, took in the sight of his protectively clutched arms, and quickly dropped both hands to his sides. 

“Nothing,” he said shortly. He turned away, affecting a nonchalance John did not believe for a second. “Drink?”

In one fluid movement, John pulled out the nearest chair to Sherlock’s right and jabbed two fingers into his left side. Sherlock cried out, cringing away from the pain. The chair caught him at the knees and he fell into it with an ungraceful grunt. 

“I’d bet that hurt,” John observed, stepping up so that he was blocking Sherlock from rising.

Sherlock glared. “I’m fine.”

John frowned. “You seem to have forgotten I’m a doctor. Let us review.” He put up one hand and counted on his fingers. “Years of medical training, actually employed here as the house doctor, and,” he wiggled his third finger for emphasis, “stronger than you if we come to blows. Let me see your damned head and chest for a moment.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “Just the head,” he countered. 

Arguing was pointless, John could see. But the element of surprise might be just sufficient. Not wasting another word, he got his hands on either side of Sherlock’s face and gripped tightly.

“Be still,” he commanded. 

Sherlock responded with an exceedingly rude gesture.

“Stubborn lunatic,” John returned, prodding higher on his friend's temple. On the right, his thumb encountered, thankfully, only unbroken skin. On the left, he pushed dark hair away to reveal a mean-looking abrasion, ragged and dark against Sherlock’s pallor. 

“You didn’t come for medical attention, did you?” John mused, leaning forward to get a better look. “You probably didn't even bloody remember I’m a doctor. You’re here solely to prove to someone that you were in the right and that everyone’s an idiot.”

“Everyone is an idiot,” came the mumbled response. 

John shook his head. “Start over then,” he said. “I’ll listen if you'll permit me to clean this wound.” Sherlock scoffed. “It’s my best offer,” John insisted. “And anyway, there’s something amiss with your ribs. Don’t think I won’t use that to my advantage if you refuse.”

“You’ll exploit my injury so that you can remedy my injury,” said Sherlock, skepticism in his voice.

“Yes,” John said stoutly. “I might not be a _good_ doctor in every sense of the word but I am an effective one.”

Pale eyes locked on dark ones for a long moment. When it became clear that John was not about to budge, Sherlock huffed and drummed his fingers on his thigh. 

“The River Floss flooded, down by Dorlcote Mill,” he said abruptly.

John took this as permission to continue his examination, so he trotted back to his seat to take up his napkin and water. When he returned, Sherlock was watching his approach closely. Almost suspiciously.

“It won’t hurt a bit,” John insisted. He wet the fabric and made a noise of encouragement before pressing lightly at the end of Sherlock’s eyebrow, where a particularly largeish drop of blood had dried. “Tell me some more, keep your mind off it if you’re so squeamish.”

Sherlock started slowly, but the words picked up speed as he went. 

“I needed a dog corpse. Experiment in dissection. Seemed as likely a way to obtain one as any.”

John made a face, which Sherlock did not notice.

“A man had disappeared in the flood. I located his body.” He winced as John cleaned a bit more deeply. “Damage to the corners of two adjacent houses suggested a powerful eddy, which neatly deposited him between the ridges of a nearby rooftop, invisible from the perspective of the ground. Twined in the arms of his _sister_.”

John’s brow furrowed. 

“Sister,” he repeated. He thought backwards. “And you thought they were lovers.”

Sherlock’s face darkened. “Their position implied intimacy, estrangement, regret, and shame. So yes, illicit lovers was one of my four initial theories.”

John snickered. 

Sherlock’s eyes flashed. 

“Sorry,” said John. “Go on. You had four theories.”

Sherlock hunched his shoulders defensively. “I would have got it right if I had been permitted to finish my investigation.”

“But someone took exception to the lovers idea.”

Sherlock nodded as well as he was able, given John’s grip on his head. “It seems she was well and truly out of favour among the local inhabitants. I don’t think it was the incestuous implication so much as the smudge it would be to his character that offended.”

“But you had already solved the mystery,” said John. “You found the body. What were you still investigating for?”

Sherlock shrugged. 

“You just wanted to know, didn’t you?” John realised. “You were interested and you simply couldn’t resist showing off.” He wanted to laugh, and though he clamped down hard on the tickle in his throat, a snort escaped all the same, straight into Sherlock’s upturned face.

Sherlock just stared out from between his hands, unmoving. At the dubious look in those silver eyes, John could not keep himself from laughing aloud. His grip tightened, keeping Sherlock from retreating.

“Sorry, I'm so sorry.” Another breathless wave of giggles intervened before John could get out, “Just give me a moment.”

Sherlock frowned as if he didn't know the meaning of the phrase. 

“What’s the matter?” he demanded. A sluggish drop of blood rolled a little further along his eyebrow. 

John wheezed, but collected himself. “I can just imagine you, dragging loads of hapless villagers round on a mad search – scaling their houses to look on the roof, how did you even manage – and then you’ve found him, you’ve solved it, but you still can’t keep yourself from rattling on about... about...” He trailed off. A thumb, working of its own accord, brushed along the line of Sherlock’s cheekbone. “Lovers and sisters and things. My God, I adore you,” he confessed, surprising himself. “I really do.”

Sherlock raised one elegant eyebrow.

John thought he should probably feel embarrassed. But perhaps he had simply already used up all of the embarrassment he could possibly have in front of Sherlock Holmes . Instead, he was grinning like a fool.

“I know I’m an idiot,” he reassured, since surely that would be the first thing Sherlock would want to remind him of. His grip softened. “I don’t care that I am. I just think you ought to know you’re the dearest friend I have ever had.” He nodded once, for emphasis.

Sherlock was staring, really staring, eyes wide and still, not darting about like they did when he was deducing. There was a glint, a metallic something adrift in them, which John had never seen there before. It quickened his pulse, as though he should be deciding whether to fight or flee.

John shook his head to clear it of the odd thought. The fall of dusk was wreaking strange effects with the angles of the light. 

“Well, anyway,” he went on, trying for levity, “shall we undress you right here in the dining room or would you rather we remove to your chambers?”

Sherlock swallowed. His eyes widened, reconfiguring the reflected light in his eyes into something entirely different. If John didn’t know better, he might have expected Sherlock’s cheeks to flush. 

Startled, John lifted his hands from where they were still gripping Sherlock’s head. 

“Your chest,” he explained. “I need to check your ribs.”

Sherlock abruptly scrambled to his feet, forcing John backwards. 

“Right,” he said. The arm was back to holding his midsection. 

John chewed the inside of his cheek, amused that of all the things Sherlock could say and do with utter aplomb (scaling rooftops came to mind), a simple accident of innuendo was all it took to make him skittish. “I didn’t mean –” he started to say.

“I know what you meant,” Sherlock interrupted.

They locked eyes. 

“Good,” John broke the silence. “Shall we, then?” He gestured towards the doorway. 

Sherlock nodded, then followed obediently the entire way to his bedchamber. 

They made it as far as getting Sherlock’s shirt off before the pliant silence began to cause John some real concern. 

“Have I really shocked you so badly?” he enquired at last, ducking his head to look closely at the bruises blooming across Sherlock’s ribs. 

Oddly, Sherlock let out a low, dry laugh. John glanced up, but Sherlock’s gaze remained firmly trained on the opposite wall. 

“Oh, God, I have,” John observed. “I apologise. I only meant to say... Oh, I don’t know.” He frowned into the pale but purpling skin beneath his hands. “I don’t suppose I’ve ever been so much of an awkward bastard as I am around you.”

“From dearest friend to most awkward friend in under a quarter of an hour,” Sherlock mused softly. “How ever did I manage that?”

John sighed, not quite sure whether what he was feeling was affection or exasperation.

Sherlock’s eyes refocused on his face. He pushed John’s hands away from where they were gently prodding his stomach, and as John’s arms fell what seemed like miles down to rest at his sides, John found himself newly conscious of just how much taller than him Sherlock was. Without having moved an inch, the man seemed to loom over him. 

John felt himself tilt his chin up, as if Sherlock might be about to whisper something to him. For a tiny flash of a moment, he felt certain... _something..._ was about to happen.

Just before it did – whatever ‘it’ was – Sherlock spun around and snatched his shirt up. Fabric whipped around him, the crisp white washing away the berry-coloured stains splashed across his skin. A jacket followed, which left John staring blankly at the dark expanse of his back. 

“I think you should have a party,” John blurted, before he lost Sherlock’s attention entirely. 

Sherlock scoffed and did not turn around. 

“No.”

“Not for me,” John pressed. “For Adele. She deserves to know other people, Sherlock.”

The line of Sherlock’s shoulders scrunched up, then released downwards. 

“Other people are stupid.”

John waved both hands in exasperation. “Of course they are, to you,” he shot back. “But Adele needs them. _Normal people_ need them.”

With every second that Sherlock kept his back turned, John’s frustration grew. Didn’t Sherlock feel anything at all, even just a passing affection, for him in return? For God’s sake, he had just told the man their friendship meant more than anything else in his life, hadn’t he? He had seen Sherlock respond with more warmth to expressions of fondness from his dog. 

Staring at that rigid spine, the dismissive cant of Sherlock’s hips, John’s thoughts turned to the long, icy road that was Thornfield’s only connection to town. He thought of dark shadows mingling on the forbidden stairs to the east wing and he thought of solitary dinners at a table built for twenty. It was all well and good for Sherlock, who had seen much of the world and had apparently decided it wasn’t for him. But for Adele, whose natural curiosity, every bit as ravenous as Sherlock’s own, had barely so much as tried itself in the rose garden, the loneliness of Thornfield would contort and wound. Her world would grow bitter and she along with it, without ever knowing what it was like for life to taste sweet. The thought was too much; John could not in good conscience hold his tongue.

“You will force her to become like you,” he accused. 

The dark figure ahead of him rotated, at last, but it was as though Sherlock had gone, disappeared and left a translucent shell behind in his place. 

John took an involuntary step back. “Are you all ri-”

But Sherlock strode around him and out the door before he could finish. 

 

Next morning, John woke to a knock at his door, feeling as though he hadn’t ever managed to fall asleep in the first place. After a night spent wondering over whatever had passed between him and Sherlock the day before, he remained adrift in the unpleasant sensation that he had done something terribly wrong, but he was no closer to understanding what it was. 

He answered his visitor with a grunt and Mrs Fairfax stepped inside. In her right hand, she held aloft something longish and pale. 

John squinted. 

“Your –” said Mrs Fairfax at the same time that John recognised it and said, “My –”

She smiled. “You left it in the dining room, leaned up against your chair,” she explained. 

“I did?”

“Mm. I’ll just leave it here.” She propped it neatly against the wall, within reach of the bed. “I’m sorry to have woken you.”

John hummed. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled, thoroughly preoccupied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Iriya for the beta, and apologies for my own slowness. Thanks to everyone whose cheerleading is keeping me going!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who checked in and encouraged me during the long accidental hiatus. This story is not dead! I won't be able to post with the same frequency as I could before, but I am back! You are lovely people and I'm happy to have you as readers.
> 
> Thanks also to Iriya for the beta and for waiting so patiently on me. I made a few changes after she looked at it, so remaining mistakes are mine, all mine.

The next time John saw Sherlock, he was riding a horse right up to the front door. John, Mrs Fairfax, and Adele all heard the booming call from the front of the house, a resounding, “Mrs Fairfax!”

John was halfway from his chair before he turned and gave his pupil an apologetic look.

“Excuse me, please,” he said quickly. “It’s only that he and I parted on such awkward terms.”

Adele nodded, gracious creature that she was. “Go on, mend things between you,” she told him. “I shall endeavour to understand the flow of blood through the body on my own today.”

John reached the front door before Mrs Fairfax, and he opened it to find Sherlock, not yet dismounted, mid-bellow.

“Ah, John,” he said, breaking easily off from yelling his housekeeper’s name to a more conversational tone. He grinned and bounced fluidly down to the ground. “Will you please alert Miss Varens to the fact that her studies of anatomy are suspended for the rest of the week, and that she will find suitable apparel for the week’s festivities has been delivered to her chamber.” He did not bother to inflect it like a question.

“Festivities?” John asked, hand still on the door.

“Oh, yes,” said Sherlock, too brightly. “I sent word ahead for Mrs Fairfax to ready a number of the guest rooms, for we are expecting visitors!” He turned on his heel and strode off towards the stables, reins in hand.

 

They were to arrive the next day, John learned from Mrs Fairfax, as Sherlock had immediately swept off to smoke his pipe in some godforsaken cranny of the house. John had the sneaking feeling that he had been bested – at what, though, he could not guess. For once, Sherlock had taken his counsel; was that not a battle won in John's favour? John felt restless, perplexed. He sought Sherlock everywhere he could think of – even going so far as to shout up into the echoing darkness of the east staircase.

Sherlock might as well have been made of mist, for all the response John got.

Meanwhile, in his absence Sherlock appeared to be compensating for a thousand instances of ignoring John's advice: this single act of compliance was done as outrageously by the book as possible. The fireplaces were lit, the kitchen bursting, the bookshelves dusted. Even the the enormous dog got a thorough brushing by some lads Sherlock had hired from town for the week. Curtains were thrown open; the cat skull disappeared from the dining room corridor. John wandered in a daze, wondering what Sherlock could possibly have paid to conjure a full staff out of nothing.

By the time John returned to himself enough to think of looking for her, Adele was nowhere to be found. It was with a sense of protectiveness that John gathered up the books his pupil had left open and disorganised on the table in the parlour. He secreted them all in his own room, rather than returning them to Adele's. The unceremonious abandonment of their lessons did sting, a little.

Thornfield had never seemed so large.

Confounded by the bustle and the suddenness of it all, John retreated to his chamber for dinner. He disliked how the unfamiliarity of a tidied-up Thornfield Hall chafed him. After all, it wasn't as though he had any claim to the place or how it was kept. He wondered when he had so thoroughly taken leave of his sense of proportion. He was important, yes, to Adele and, he fancied, to Sherlock as well. But he was nonetheless a companion born of necessity, a doctor for an ailing child. He was certainly in no position to prefer the state of the fireplaces one way or another.

 

The morning brought John little ease. He gathered his cane and donned his best clothes and made his way to sit stiffly in the parlour until the guests arrived.

Sherlock materialised at midday to boom, "Our visitors, Doctor Watson," and sweep John into the entryway, where the door had been thrown open to welcome the guests. There were six of them, all stepping down from a neat little row of broughams assisted by a trim set of newly-hired footmen. Sherlock, an odd wide smile stuck to his face, tramped outside to bow and kiss cheeks and offer his hand to be shaken.

Adele was there already, a truly lovely look of anticipation bringing colour to her lips and cheeks. A pale blue dress, presumably one of the items Sherlock had deposited in her chamber upon his return, cinched to accentuate her waist but left elegant folds at her chest and hips which did not disguise her natural slenderness so much as soften its angles. There was no mistaking her for a sickly invalid anymore. John liked to think that was partly due to his own care, and not just the work of Sherlock's gift.

Wrong-footed though he was in this, John found he could not for a moment begrudge Adele her happiness. He moved to her side and leaned close, offering the briefest nudge of his shoulder against hers.

"Do you have need of anything?" he murmured to her.

The pink of her cheeks darkened a shade.

"No, thank you," she nearly whispered. "Mrs Fairfax says I should try not to think of it and then perhaps I shan't have any trouble at all."

Sherlock and the visitors were nearing the door now. John nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, worked his face into a polite smile.

"If you do, though," he said quietly. "Just if. There's no shame in it. I mean this quite seriously. Just… tap the side of your nose. I'll be at your side with a medically imperative reason you must leave the room at once."

The corners of Adele's mouth twitched.

"Yes, Doctor," she agreed.

"Welcome, friends, to Thornfield Hall," Sherlock announced, leading everyone inside. "I suppose introductions are in order."

A group of rosy faces – all of them youngish except for, John was relieved to recognise, Mrs Hudson – peeked around Sherlock to stare at John and Adele with undisguised eagerness.

"It is my happy privilege to present," Sherlock gestured grandly, "my darling ward, Adele Varens. As you are all no doubt aware, she has suffered quite a sheltered youth at Thornfield, and so manages yet to be ill-acquainted with the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world."

John glanced sideways, startled. Quoting poetry was nothing new from Sherlock, but where Sherlock would normally have delivered such words with with all the weight and heft and melodrama he could command, now he said it drily, with a kind of ironic twist of his lips.

For her part, Adele seemed not to notice that anything was out of the ordinary. She was searching the newcomers with a longing in her eyes that was so hopelessly young, John wanted to throw his arms around her. He chided himself for not having got up the nerve to ask Sherlock to have a party sooner.

 "And this is Dr John Watson," Sherlock was continuing. "If there is anyone personally responsible for the renewed vigour of Thornfield's residents, it is he." 

John's eyes swung back again, from Adele to Sherlock, but Sherlock gave no sign of realising what a compliment he had just paid. In fact, he wasn't even looking in John's direction. Sherlock's attention was fixed instead on the woman, tall with sloping shoulders, who had chosen to stand closest to him. Impossibly black and bright at once, her eyes flashed once towards John. Her dark hair was becomingly arranged, a crown of thick plaits behind and in front several long, glossy curls. The finely tapered corners of her mouth curled eloquently, as if inscribed there by a calligrapher. 

"John, Adele, this is George Osborne, and his fellow soldier William Dobbin." Sherlock gestured towards the two men nearest them. Osborne inclined his head to John and bowed in Adele's direction, while Dobbin clumsily tilted toward them both. They stepped aside to make way for, "Misses Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe," who each curtsied with a smile – Miss Morland's more sincere than Miss Thorpe's, in John's estimation – "my aunt, Mrs Hudson, whom you already know," – John took in a breath to greet her, but Sherlock carried right on, "And, finally, the incomparable Blanche Ingram." This last was spoken directly to the woman with the startling lips. She smiled again, a sinuous thing that was nearly enough to make John blush. The name, he reflected, could hardly have been more ill-suited than Sherlock being called Humility. 

 

All through dinner, John was unable to tear his attention from the fact that Sherlock seemed odd, like an uncanny simulacrum of himself.

John had grown accustomed to Sherlock the way he was on fire-warmed nights in the library – the prickling almost-fear that shivered him when Sherlock said the terrible, wonderful dark things he was given to saying. It made him feel that he was standing at a precipice, a mere breath away from toppling. 

Now, Sherlock retained the melancholic darkness that came naturally to his character, but it was as though he had put it behind glass. John stared and stared only managed to feel he was pressed up against a window, able to glimpse but not hear or _feel_ the fathomless essence that only Sherlock possessed. 

The man was an entertaining host, against all expectation. That characteristic misanthropy, softened now, seemed a rather dashing kind of wit. Blanche Ingram was especially satisfied with his contributions to the conversation, and she invariably found a clever bit of poetry to quote back at him or a cunning turn of phrase to undercut his points.

Miss Ingram was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair. John resented its (admittedly stunning) contrast with the jetty mass of her curls. 

Truly, John resented _her_ entirely. Sherlock spoke cordially with everyone present, but he returned to her at every opportunity. Was it she who wrought such changes in his friend? Was she so very clever as to have broken through to Sherlock's heart, that ravaged place no one else so much as hoped to tread?

And the way she spoke to Sherlock! As though his submission was known and owned in advance. There was an eager hunger in her eyes when she cast them on Sherlock, like she wanted nothing more than to pull a hood over his head and tie jesses round his feet. 

It was only because they were seated across from one another that John noticed Mrs Hudson also looking with apprehension between her nephew and Miss Ingram. An unpleasant roil in his belly quickly dispatched any remaining appetite. Mrs Hudson had known Sherlock since he was a boy; if she was also concerned, John could hardly hope he was only imagining things. 

 

The following days saw Thornfield more lively than John had ever seen it. Sherlock and Miss Ingram took to riding side by side through the grounds for long, intimate stretches of time. In the afternoons and evenings there were games of cards and bouts of conversation. 

On the third day, John found a moment to speak to Adele alone. 

"What do you think of them?" he asked quietly. The others were in the next room. Miss Thorpe's tinkling laugh reached them through the wall. 

Adele considered. "I have spoken to Miss Morland. She's lovely, and likes novels nearly as much as I do. Miss Thorpe is less compelling." 

John grinned. 

"And the others?" 

Adele's fingers went to twist into her hair before she remembered it was swept up and pinned behind her head. She curled a lip ruefully at the wayward hand. 

"Mr Dobbin, as it turns out, is less of an idiot than he seemed at first glance," she said candidly. "Mr Osborne, on the other hand, is much more of one." 

The grin was nearly hurting his cheeks now. After days of strangeness from Sherlock, Adele's perfect normality was a warm relief. 

"And Miss Ingram?" he couldn't help pressing. 

"Impossible," said Adele. 

John felt a wave of affection. Had they had been entirely alone, he might have even embraced her. But the likelihood of someone entering (and, inevitably, having the wrong interpretation of his embrace) was too great. He settled for putting a hand on hers, just for a moment. 

Adele flipped her hand beneath his touch, lightning quick, and stole a tight squeeze of her fingers around his. John had a flash of memory: the weakness of her grasp, the day they met in her chambers for the first time. Her fingers were much stronger now, the bones less obvious and brittle. 

"Thank you," Adele said, feelingly. "I know I haven't uttered a word at dinner with everyone, but in quieter moments I haven't had the slightest trouble talking to Miss Morland or Mr Dobbin. It's more than I ever thought I could do." 

John was so pleased he wished he could compose a sonnet on the spot. 

Perhaps, he thought, his happy mood wavering, if he were as clever as the _incomparable Blanche Ingram_ , he could have. 

But, no. He tried once more to put Sherlock from his mind. This was a happy moment to share with Adele. Not with niggling thoughts of anyone else. 

"You are welcome," he replied. "Though I entertain no illusions that I am any more responsible for your voice than you are." 

Adele smiled broadly and, before John could blink, had brought his knuckles to her lips to drop a soft kiss across them. 

 

"Charades!" Osborne suggested the next day. "It's a game Miss Varens can play regardless of her infirmity." 

John glanced at Adele, but she only rolled her eyes a little, and Miss Morland, seated beside her, hid a giggle behind her hand. 

"If Miss Varens would indeed like to play –" began Dobbin, but Sherlock's deep voice sounded from the doorway. 

"No," he decreed. "I find acting abhorrent." 

"That's hardly a reason to deprive all the rest of us," Miss Ingram piped up from her seat at the piano. Her voice was silky. In the corner, where he had settled with a book, John wished it grated more, wished her nasal passages would warp just a bit so that she sounded less lovely. 

Sherlock crossed to her side, which left his back turned to the room. Miss Ingram's face tilted as he approached, displaying her neck to advantage. 

"Let us play a duet instead," he suggested. "Music is better company than costumes." 

"Mr Holmes, if I might," Miss Thorpe piped up, baldly attempting to mimic Miss Ingram's tone. " _I_ find charades quite diverting." 

Miss Ingram arched a dark eyebrow. 

"If you hate it all that much," she said, "I shall refrain from the game with you and we can," the slightest, briefest pause, "play by ourselves." 

Amazed, John watched the cant of Sherlock's hips shift, one leg to the other. He was considering it. Actually considering – 

"Yes, fine." Sherlock bent down to his violin case, which lay propped against the piano bench. He waved a hand at the rest of them. "Away, all of you. The show, such as it is, may go on." 

The party removed to another room, Misses Morland and Thorpe giggling softly all the way. Adele caught John's eye and mouthed, "Can you believe it?" to which John could only shake his head, vehemently. 

The charades-players divided themselves into two groups, Miss Thorpe insisting on having both Dobbin and Osborne with her, which left John, Adele, and Miss Morland together. Mrs Hudson volunteered to simply sit and play the spectator. 

They decided that John's group's would be first to watch and guess. John left most of that portion to the other two, as he couldn't focus for straining to hear violin music through the walls. To his chagrin, or perhaps to his relief, the game had taken them too far into the house for him to hear much at all from the duelling piano and violin. 

It was a welcome distraction, in any case, when his group's turn came and it was quickly revealed that Adele was a consummate actress. The entire party delighted in this discovery, and Adele bore the attention eagerly, for she had never known anything like it. She even laughed, bright and clear, at the very end, as she and John were stood opposite one another, she in a ridiculous white veil and he in an imposing hat. 

"Bride!" called out Dobbin, just as Miss Morland threw a cloud of torn paper pieces over their heads, and Adele tripped forward into John's arms. John steadied her with his free hand, letting his cane support their combined weight. Adele's face was a delight, her nostrils gently flaring as she fought for breath around peals of laughter. 

In the audience, Osborne was on his feet, applauding. 

"Brilliantly performed, Miss Varens," he insisted. "Wasn't she magnificent, Mr Holmes?" 

John's head snapped around. The idiotic hat wobbled and he clutched at it to keep it from falling. 

Sherlock was looking right at him, grey eyes shot through with brilliant blue. The shock of it was like being scrubbed with scalding water after weeks without washing: an overflow of relief and pain at once, each sensation mixing into the other so that it was impossible to tell them apart.

At Sherlock's elbow, Miss Ingram looked on as well. 

"Quite good, Miss Varens," she agreed. "One might easily believe you in love with Dr Watson, after such a performance."

A muscle bunched and released in Sherlock's jaw. John stared back, unmoving, unthinking. 

The others were chuckling around them, recounting the scenes of the game. But Sherlock's eyes – truly, John uselessly noted, a remarkable blue today – drowned out the rest of the room. It was only distantly that John heard Mrs Fairfax announce tea, felt Osborne detach Adele's arm from his, noticed Miss Ingram reach to take Sherlock's arm. 

The touch seemed to shake Sherlock from his thoughts, and just as suddenly as John had got his attention, it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes:
> 
> 1\. The poem is Wordsworth's "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey."  
> 2\. Some of the descriptions of Blanche Ingram's appearance are from the original (I told you this story actually does have something to do with Jane Eyre!). Particularly her clothes and her hair.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am having some wrist issues, and typing is difficult. BUT I will get to responding to all your comments as soon as I can because I love you and love that you are reading and those comments mean a lot to me. 
> 
> Thanks as ever to Iriya for the beta!

Addled by the look he had shared with Sherlock, and the thoroughness with which Sherlock had proceeded to ignore him afterwards, John submersed himself in a book as soon as the game was over. He passed the remainder of the afternoon scanning the same two pages forwards and backwards again and again until Mrs Fairfax came to announce dinner.

It was then that John realised that, somewhere between charades and dinner, Sherlock had disappeared. When he asked, Miss Ingram answered with a knowing air. 

"Called away," she explained. "But he promises to return to us as quickly as he can."

John gave a tight smile in return, but went quickly back to his plate. Let the others think him bad company; they probably already did. He knew that he had lapsed into a brooding temperament over the last few days, but he was too far lost in it to care. He missed his friend, the man who alternately sought his affection and reviled it, the man whose sudden movements and overwhelming noise were all that John looked forward to at the close of every day. 

Ignoring the others, John turned inwards. There was a part of him, the part that was trying very hard to pass itself off as the rational one, that wanted very much to be able to put his conflicted feelings aside. Surely after the first heady rush of romance passed, Sherlock would not continue to neglect their friendship, would he? Even if Sherlock did intend to open his heart to a wife, there was no reason to think things would not go back to the way they had been before. John's presence would still be necessary at Thornfield; there was, after all, still Adele to think of. 

Truly, John was ashamed at how little attention he had been paying to his pupil, given that exposing her to all these people had been his idea in the first place. But Adele seemed to be doing quite well on her own. After dinner, she even managed to cajole Dobbin into joining her at the piano, where they could converse apart. The after-dinner conversation was accompanied by halting, staccato bursts interspersed with quick, trilling melody – Dobbin's untrained fingers attempting to follow Adele's nimbler example. Osborne craned his neck over the back of the couch periodically to jibe good-naturedly at Dobbin's performance.

The women had only just begun to talk of retiring to bed when one of the newly hired footmen rushed into the room. Upon entering, he turned all about, but, not finding Sherlock, he settled on Mrs Hudson. 

"Ma'am," he began, hesitantly. 

"Is anything the matter?" Mrs Hudson smiled her encouragement. 

"There is a woman at the door," the boy explained. "She says she will read palms. She… She refuses to leave until we allow her to see one of the ladies."

A burst of voices followed close on the boy's short speech.

"Oh, I have _always_ wanted to have my palm read!" exclaimed Miss Thorpe. "She must be one of the gypsies we saw on our journey here!"

"A bit of excitement!" Osborne proclaimed over Miss Morland's fearful, eager gasp.

Adele had started avidly interrogating Dobbin in hushed tones, and even Mrs Hudson looked a little bit curious.

"I don't suppose much harm can come of it," she decided after the hubbub subsided. "Show her into the library."

 

When the footman returned, it was with a startling request. 

"She says she will see the young bride first." Hhaving conveyed this, he bowed and seemed content to leave them to their confusion.

John's attention went to Miss Morland, as Miss Thorpe had quite obviously made it known that she had no current prospects. It was a little surprising that in four days Miss Morland had not mentioned being engaged; perhaps it had not yet been publicly announced?

Everyone else, John soon realised, had turned towards Miss Ingram. 

"It must be you, dear Blanche!" Miss Thorpe twittered excitedly. "She means to tell you of Mr Holmes's intentions, I am sure of it!"

Curiosity suffused the room. Mrs Hudson's expression was conflicted and, John thought, tinged with something like sadness.

At first Miss Ingram demurred, but she was not obdurate. When it was clear that the room's consensus was that she must be the one requested (John pointedly did not cast a vote), she went, her steps light and graceful on the carpet.

In the quiet moments that followed Miss Ingram’s exit, John tried very hard to catch the attention of Mrs Hudson, but she seemed lost to her own thoughts and did not notice.

"What can she read in our palms, do you suppose?" Miss Morland wondered into the silence. 

"Oh, nearly anything," Osborne said authoritatively. "I once saw a fortune-teller in Paris who could tell a man exactly how he was going to die."

Miss Morland shivered. 

"Oh, I hope she doesn't tell me that," she said, half eager with dread. 

The conversation ended there, however, when a laugh from the hall distracted them. Moments later, Miss Ingram entered, her dark eyes dancing with mirth. 

"What was she like?" Osborne asked immediately. "It was awfully quick."

Miss Ingram surveyed the room with lips pursed, luxuriating in the drama.

"Delightful," she said at last. "No sooner had she glimpsed me than she was demanding I leave again." She let out a ringing laugh. "She wishes us to know that we are all idiots" – Miss Thorpe squeaked indignantly – "and that if we can't remember so much as the events of our own afternoon activities, perhaps we should hire a large carriage to convey us all to the sanitarium posthaste."

A beat of silence fell across the room. 

"Adele," John realised. All heads turned towards him. “She meant the young bride from the _charades,_ my God." He giggled. "Oh, we really are all idiots."

"Oi," Osborne began, but Miss Ingram and Miss Morland and Mrs Hudson were already laughing. 

"Good gracious," Mrs Hudson chuckled. "Sherlock would be appalled. Go on, then, dear. It must be you, Adele."

"Would you like anyone to go with you?" John asked, standing up to accompany her. 

Adele rose from the piano and shook her head. She gave John a fond look.

"If she is any good at all," she quipped, "surely she will know what I wish to say even if I am unable to say it."

It was not until the words had left her throat that Adele seemed to realise that she had spoken to the room at large and not merely to John. Surprise spread quickly over her features.

"Well said," Dobbin complimented from his place beside her on the piano bench. 

"Well said, indeed," John concurred. He beamed at her, feeling very proud indeed. "Now go on, like Mrs Hudson says. We all trust you can take care of yourself."

Adele went, both hands pressed to her cheeks as though to catch the triumphant flush that stained her face and neck.

 

Adele's absence was much longer than Miss Ingram's had been, but this time the nervous tension had dissipated, leaving lightheartedness in its wake. Mrs Hudson related an amusing story of how Sherlock came to own his enormous hound: by way of stealing her in the dead of night from a baronet who had arranged to disinherit his sons, leave his estate to his dog, and fake his own death.

"It seems he intended for his young mistress to prove her previous ownership of the hound," Mrs Hudson concluded. "And the baronet hoped to return in another identity to live out his days with her after his wife had been forced to relocate elsewhere with their sons."

"Brilliant," John commented. Mrs Hudson shot him an amused glance.

"The baronet's plot or Sherlock's deductions?" she teased.

John chuckled. "The baronet, naturally. Enterprising _and_ romantic, wouldn't you say?"

 

Adele returned within the half hour, but instead of coming all the way into the room, she only popped her head in, looked at John, and unsubtly tapped her nose.

John raised an eyebrow, but she had already disappeared. 

"Right," he said, taking his cane in hand. "I'll just be, um. Back in a minute."

Adele was in the hallway, her back against the wall as if she didn't trust herself to remain standing on her own. 

"I don't know what to believe," she said breathlessly. 

Concerned, John reached to her forehead to feel her temperature. 

"Are you all right?"

Adele's hand flicked up and caught his out of the air. 

"Yes," she said, "yes, I'm fine." She plucked lightly at her hair, mindful of the pins holding it in place. "Only she knew so many things, John. Impossible things."

John hovered close.

"What things?" he asked. 

Adele quirked her mouth up into a pink knot. 

"Oh, don't look so _worried,_ John." She took several deep breaths. "It's a little bit terrifying, yes, and I am convinced beyond my reason. I shall have many nights, I think, devoted to thoughts on what I have been told tonight.” She chewed briefly at her lower lip. “But the reason I called you into the hall is that she demands to see you next. I knew I would not have the ability to say it aloud once I went in front of everyone."

John sagged against the wall as well.

"I was _frightened_ for you!" he accused. "I thought you were going to collapse!"

Adele turned her head towards him without moving the rest of her body.

"You are too good," she told him, green eyes soft and affectionate.. "If you were less good, you would not be so frightened all of the time."

John furrowed his brow. 

"I don't –"

"You should go," Adele interrupted, shaking her head. "She is impatient. And she took great care to be sure I understood her properly. She wants to see _the doctor_ next."

John scanned her once more for signs of distress before he moved to leave. Adele nodded reassuringly, shooing him with her hands. 

"They'll want to know what happened," he warned, turning back around. "They'll have a thousand questions. How will you answer?"

Adele grinned. 

"I will act," she said theatrically. 

 

John entered the library to find a small fire in the grate and a small huddled shape in Sherlock's chair. The lamps were turned low enough that the room was more shadow than light and he could barely make out the outline of the old woman's chin beneath the layers of fabric that wreathed her. 

"You are the doctor," observed the hooded figure. The sound was low and thready with age, almost all breath and no voice. 

"Yes," John confirmed. "My name's Dr Watson. What’s yours?"

The woman jerked her head to the side, refusing his question. 

"Your young bride is lovely," she said instead.

John smiled. "Yes," he agreed. "Though I should tell you we aren't actually betrothed. That was only a charade. For a game."

The fortune teller tilted her head. 

"A charade," she repeated, drawing out the word portentously. "A prescient tableau, I think."

"If you think that, you're not a very good fortune-teller after all.” John crossed the room briskly and took a seat in his customary chair, facing the fortune-teller. He was not generally one for the veils and illusion and the misty insinuations that passed themselves off as the occult. Particularly after living at Thornfield, which afforded him plenty of real-life mystery and revelation.

The crone tilted her head the other way, a rehearsed mannerism, John thought, designed to seem eerie and knowing. 

"And anyway, aren't you meant to be reading my –"

"Give me your palm," she commanded, interrupting him. 

Obediently, John extended his hand across the space between the chairs. The old woman took it into hers, which were clad in rough black gloves. She turned his hand over and back again, bringing her face near his palm. John watched the top of her head as she tilted and bobbed in silence.

Eventually, she sat back a little but kept hold of his hand, their arms making a kind of bridge between the chairs. 

"If you're in love, you're playing it remarkably close to the chest," she said at last, losing some of the aura. She sounded surprised. Her glove itched against John's skin. 

He laughed aloud. 

"In love?" he repeated. "You are absolutely right. If I am in love, it is a very well-kept secret indeed, as I myself am not aware of it."

The crone looked up at him, her head twisted at yet another odd angle so that he still could not see her face.

"Yes," she murmured. "I see."

She dropped his hand then and John's arm swung back, swishing against the fabric of his chair. He watched as she arose from her seat, unusually graceful for so aged a person. To John's shock, she kept rising, up and up, far taller than should have been possible. Light played over her face as she grew, revealing a sharp nose, ghostly pale skin. At last, she stopped, hovering over his chair, a towering spectre draped in black. 

A thrill went through him as she met his eyes, her mouth and nose in shadow, her eyes an astounding blend of silver and blue.

"Oh, my God," John stuttered.

 

\--

 

John looked to one side, then to the other, as though hoping to find someone else there to confirm what he saw. His eyes raked Sherlock from head to foot.

He rubbed his face, then squinted. He started to speak, then stopped, then tried again. 

"I'm asleep," he decided aloud. 

Sherlock snorted. The cloth over his hair was beginning to make his scalp itch. He pushed the hood back and, still not satisfied, shucked the entire costume over his head. 

"You aren't," he said, brushing stray threads from his shirtsleeves. 

John blinked, several times, each time with a different inflection.

It was remarkable, Sherlock thought. Remarkable how many different things John could do with his eyes.

It was not, of course, unusual for Sherlock to go days at a time without seeing John; cases were almost always long, John-less periods. Still, he had hardly looked at John in a week, save that very odd something that had occurred during the game of charades. Bracketing that, there had been nothing for ages and Sherlock was positively hungry for it. He stole a happy moment to drink in the sight of his lovely golden-haired Puck. 

Oh, these looks could sustain him forever. He could just never move from this spot on the floor, the fire warm at his back, John's perfect face turned up to him. Sherlock allowed the moment to stretch minutely.

But, of course, there was work to be done. The case tugged at his mind, insistent.

John, meanwhile, was obviously still working out the distinction between waking and dreaming. 

"You aren't," Sherlock repeated. "You aren't asleep, John."

John came back to himself with a sharp intake of breath.

"Sherlock?" 

Sherlock twirled himself around with a flourish. 

"In the flesh," he confirmed. 

"What the _devil_ are you doing?" Having recovered from the shock, John was now thoroughly scandalised. His brow bunched magnificently, reproach practically written across it in boldface type.

"Investigating," Sherlock told him. He did not wait for John to catch up. "One year ago, a young woman named Blanche Ingram caused a ripple in her family by eloping with a Bohemian nobleman. Six months ago, the same woman reappeared at her family's doorstep with incontrovertible testimony, verified by at least a dozen reputable witnesses, that not only had she been removed from her family home against her will, but that her supposed marriage had never been performed, never consummated, et cetera. Her father, being nothing but relieved to have regained his only daughter, welcomed her with open arms."

Sherlock began to pace a long arc in front of John as he recounted his story. He turned now, at his zenith, and cocked an eyebrow. A touch of theatrics was always well rewarded when he was relating things to John. He hoped John had scrambled up to speed enough to appreciate the gesture.

"Not a month after that, Ingram was dead, his will was executed, and every penny of it fell to…" Sherlock raised his eyebrows. 

John was blinking rather a lot again, like he was looking directly into the sun after being in darkness. 

"...Miss Blanche Ingram?" he ventured.

Sherlock thrust a triumphant finger into the air. 

"Miss Blanche Ingram!" he pronounced. "It's far too much coincidence to be the entire truth, but" – he swirled his hands through the air, tracing the map of Miss Ingram's history he had spent the week mentally tacking up around him – " _where_ is the central lie? Which, of all these threads, is the one that will break when I pull?"

John shook his head. 

"It's not a party at all, is it?" he said. "It's one of your mysteries."

"It's both." Sherlock bowed proudly. "Impressed?"

John hesitated. 

"A little," he owned. "But I think perhaps I shouldn't be."

"Don't be dull, John."

They shared a look, John’s nostrils flaring ever so slightly with his breaths. Sherlock reflected that it was nice to have John here, right in the middle of it, and not just being filled in afterwards. Sherlock thought perhaps he might endeavour to bring more cases home in the future.

"The others will wonder where I've got to," John said at last. He stood, gathering his cane. "Shall I send someone else in?"

Sherlock kicked the costume underneath the nearest chair.

"Tedious. Tell them you chivvied the fortune teller out the door after she insulted Miss Thorpe's virtue. Miss Thorpe will adore that."

"You do know you're a bit of a bastard, yes?" John stood and fidgeted his fingers around on the handle of the cane. "You frightened the fucking life out of me."

Sherlock grinned, all teeth. Swearing suited John. 

"Return here afterwards," Sherlock demanded. “After everyone has gone to bed.” 

John put on a frown that was obviously meant to deter him, but Sherlock could see he had won already. Very good. This brief meeting was enough to make him crave the doctor's warm companionship once more, after so many nights without. 

"Don't be long,” Sherlock added at John’s retreating back.

 

It was positively ages.

 

"Let me get this right," John interjected, first thing upon his return. "Are you solving one of your cases by _marrying_ the suspect?"

Sherlock frowned.

"Yes," he replied. That was far from the most interesting part. A means to an end; a tool like any other.  

John's free hand was on his face, pressing and rubbing in patterns Sherlock had come to recognise as signs that John was exasperated. The doctor had not even made it as far as his chair: he was just standing, in the middle of the room, rubbing his eyes.

"Do you not have the slightest instinct for self-preservation?" John's words were muffled in the palm of his hand. 

Sherlock studied his friend’s face, but could not glean much. What little he could see was squashed, anyway: useless data. Well. Useless data on John's state of mind. Excellent data if one were to be curious about the elasticity of John Watson's facial features. But, even if one _were_ to be interested in that, there were nonetheless more pressing issues to attend, such as:

“Why should it matter to you?” 

John's hand fell away. “Because she is _horrid._ ”

Sherlock fluttered a few fingers. For a confirmed bachelor, John was startlingly loyal to his notions of true and proper love. 

“She would marry me for my wealth. There’s nothing especially horrid about that."

“No, there isn’t,” agreed John, staring hard. “But she isn't here simply to increase her income, Sherlock.”

“Of course she is. She has mentally refurnished at least three rooms at Thornfield since arriving," Sherlock argued. 

“I'm sure she has,” John said with a grimace. "But she doesn't just want to own your _things,_ Sherlock. She wants to to own _you._ "

That sounded quite a bit like nonsense, but John sounded so earnest. Sherlock studied the small, uneven squiggle of his mouth.John's lips moved over one another, forward and then back. Carefully restrained, but only just. John was… angry?

"The way she talks to you," he said, slowly, like he was searching for the right words. "It's like she's imagining you kneeling at her feet. Like she wants to call you to heel, and  – and  –” He broke off, breathing in quick, shallow bursts. Sherlock’s fingers twitched. Such a show of emotion was beginning to threaten his own aplomb. Thankfully, John seemed to rediscover the thread of his thoughts. “Like she wants to  beat you until you beg for her mercy,” he finished feelingly.

Sherlock swallowed. Actually, the image was… not boring. But Blanche Ingram was not the person he would prefer to see standing above him. Nor, he reasoned, was John likely to have meant it literally. 

Indeed, the doctor had moved on, working up to a lecture on common sense, or decency, or something else that _was_ boring. From the sound of it, he was beginning to pick up a fair amount of momentum, too. 

"Are you even listening?" John demanded. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock cleared his throat, shrugged. 

"I've never begged for mercy in my life," he dismissed. He turned his back, intending to stride grandly towards the fire. Best to redirect the conversation as quickly as possible; the doctor's dislike of Miss Ingram was clouding his ability to see how clever the mystery really was.

He made it less than two strides before something clattered behind him. A hard, compact form hit the backs of his knees, and Sherlock was suddenly not standing, the carpet rushing up around him.

The cane, Sherlock realised as he fell. John had dropped the cane to the side and was tangled in his legs, doing a passably competent job of clambering over him and parrying Sherlock's instinctive efforts to extricate himself.

"You are such a bastard," John growled.

Working purely on instinct, Sherlock flipped them, driving John down with a forearm braced firmly across John's chest. 

John puffed, having to fight for breath beneath Sherlock's weight.

"Ow," he coughed in surprise. "When did you suddenly learn to wrestle?"

Sherlock faltered. A potentially fatal mistake. John believed him unskilled at hand-to-hand combat; it was the only explanation he could conceive, unsuspecting sprite that he was, for Sherlock's behaviour when John had knocked him to the floor so many nights ago.

"I didn't…" Sherlock thought quickly. "I didn't want to frighten you, last time."

" _Frighten_ me?" John wriggled and frowned. "Arse _._ " Swiftly, he brought a hand up, closed it around Sherlock's wrist, and pulled.

Sherlock's arm shot out from underneath him and he pitched forward. For a mad, dizzy moment, he thought they were going to collide, his face smashing into John's, but John turned deftly, throwing Sherlock over once again.

"All this time I've been laughing at you for being easily surprised," John accused, sitting heavily on Sherlock's torso. "And you were just waiting for the right moment to correct me, were you?"

Sherlock grunted. One half of his mind was flooding with surprise and half-formed questions. Exasperation, while a staple of his friendship with John, had never previously incited the young doctor to physical action. 

The other half of his mind was enthusiastically calculating that if and when John shifted his weight even slightly to the right, his weaker side, Sherlock would be able to regain the upper hand. Sherlock's legs tensed, waiting.

"Why were you posing as a fortune teller in the first place?" John demanded.

"I needed to see if the ruse was working."

John scrunched one eye up, obviously dissatisfied with Sherlock's answer. 

"You mean to see if the woman who may have murdered her own father is convinced that you intend to marry her."

"Yes, exactly." Sherlock sniffed, a show of detachment. "My plan was to call her in at the end. Because the lot of you can't follow basic instructions, however, I ascertained everything I needed to almost before I had even begun."

The weight on his chest lightened – John was distracted, trying to think up a rejoinder – _perfect_. Sherlock bent his legs and pushed, raising the smaller man up enough to destabilise him. 

John scrabbled with all four limbs, but Sherlock had calculated correctly. He lifted and shoved, getting John up onto his knees, getting him to shuffle backwards. 

Only John was much more flexible than Sherlock had anticipated. Sherlock had had precious little opportunity to examine John's capabilities when his mind permitted him to take leave of the cane, and so had assumed the limp at least partly physical: a psychological exacerbation of an existing bodily condition. But. No, John's leg was very limber. Quite – Sherlock noted as John folded backwards beneath him – _quite_ bendy.

As if slowed down, out of time with the rest of the world, Sherlock fell onto and then off of his friend. Overbalanced, he slipped off John's torso to the side, landing face-up on the carpet.  "You," he wheezed, just as John clambered atop him and a silky voice at the door said, "Oh!"

John and Sherlock turned their heads as one, and Blanche Ingram stared back at them, framed in the doorway.

" _Oh,_ " she repeated, in a way that made Sherlock's throat close up.

John – blessed John – did not catch her tone. 

"Miss Ingram," John said defiantly, not moving to greet her. "If you need anything, I am sure Mrs Fairfax is in the kitchen."

Miss Ingram retreated a precise half-step into the hallway. 

"My apologies," she began, looking from one man to the other.

"We'll thank you to avoid poking into private rooms without invitation," John cut her off. "Good night, Miss Ingram."

John glared at the door even after Miss Ingram had pulled it shut, as though daring her to reappear.

"That was rather rude," Sherlock commented. 

"Good," John declared. He turned his glare onto Sherlock. "Serves her right, nosing around at night as though she owns your house already."

"I didn't come to her defense,” Sherlock mused. “A proper suitor would have chastised you on her behalf."

"Good!" John cried. His hands flexed where they lay on Sherlock's shoulders. "I hope she's thoroughly offended. I hope she rejects you outright."

Amused, Sherlock stared up at the man, his friend, his very dear John, who was still absently holding him down on the floor. _Bugger the case_ , Sherlock thought, perhaps for the first time ever. He could find another way to trace Miss Ingram's activities.

"I am not overly familiar with the practice," he began again, feeling very warm. "But I do not think that is what friends normally say, when one is hoping to ask for a woman's hand in marriage."

John trembled, from his feet to his hands to his head, with laughter. He collapsed, face brushing past Sherlock's, forehead coming to rest on the carpet. His belly shook, pushing into Sherlock's, his body soft and trusting and all over Sherlock's front. 

It…tickled. A giggle swam up out of Sherlock’s throat, unbidden. 

"I am so sorry," John was stuttering. "You asked me to be your house doctor, not your – your bloody guard dog." A fresh wave of laughter took them both. 

"It's fine," Sherlock gasped. "I'll tell Joe and Will to brush you as well, shall I? The next time we have company."

John thumped Sherlock's shoulder with his fist. 

"'m not letting you train me to fetch your riding crop in my mouth."

"No," Sherlock agreed. "I already have a dog that'll do that. You can learn to fetch Mrs Fairfax. To tug –" he snickered, "– tug at her skirts with your teeth."

John thumped weakly at his shoulders with both fists now, trying and failing to catch his breath.

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own that I can sometimes become an anxious writer of Coleridgean proportions and I apologize for how slowly this story has been progressing of late. I have not, however abandoned it! I'm so grateful for the supportive readership. Your comments be the food of love and I linger over every one of them.
> 
> My beta is Iriya and I am, as always, very grateful for all her help. This one received a handful of alterations after she looked it over, and all remaining mistakes are mine all mine.

Miss Blanche Ingram did not accept Sherlock's proposal of marriage.

No matter.

John had taken to catching Sherlock's eye from across the room, crossing his own eyes and waggling his eyebrows whenever no one but Sherlock was looking. The man was irrepressible.

Once, during a lengthy anecdote of Miss Thorpe’s, John let his jaw fall slack and his eyelids droop – a flawless imitation of the glazed-over look Osborne was sporting. Sherlock had had to pretend a sneezing fit and leave the room.

Indeed, by the time their guests departed, Sherlock felt like he had not taken a properly deep breath in days. The door had barely closed on Osborne's hearty parting well-wishes before Sherlock and John were slumped against one another, helplessly giggling, John's cane possibly the only reason they were not both flat on the rug of the entrance hall.

Adele stood apart, observing them with an expression of restrained skepticism that was so reminiscent of John's own, it made an affectionate knot close in Sherlock's throat. She was grown so old now.

The thought made him dissolve into laughter all over again. Adele, old. He was mad. Infected by whatever faerie dust John had been bewitching him with lately.

Sherlock attempted to recover, tugging to straighten his waistcoat.

" _Please_ ," he said to Adele. "You can't tell me you didn't find them all wholly ridiculous."

The girl's chin jutted forward, her eyes enquiring.

"No," Sherlock clarified. "I am not going to continue to try to marry Miss Ingram. She is ridiculous, like the rest of them.”

Adele's chin tucked back in, She maintained a cool eye on Sherlock's face, reproachful. John had subsided as well by now, and was watching the exchange with quiet interest.

"All right, not all of them," Sherlock allowed. "Dobbin and Miss Morland were not ridiculous so much as hopelessly dull."

His ward directed her gaze downwards.

“You think Dobbin’s interesting because he’s got a _good heart_.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re letting literature make you idealistic.”

Behind her ear, Adele's fingers were worrying a lock of hair free.

“We could argue the point, but you’re at the end of your social stamina. You ought to rest so that you can resume lessons tomorrow."

"Sherlock." Sherlock nearly jumped. He had forgotten how close John was standing. The doctor's voice was very nearly in his ear.

And he was looking up with a solemn little wrinkle in his brow. A clench of uncertainty momentarily seized Sherlock's stomach. He suppressed it immediately. 

John looked pointedly back at Adele.

"Shall we resume lessons tomorrow?" he enquired.

Adele’s expression changed. Sherlock observed her green eyes travelling fondly around John’s face. She might as well have reached out and caressed his cheek with the palm of her hand. Adele nodded then, confirming. John grinned in return, guileless and completely unknowing. Oh, John. 

“I shall hazard a guess: the first thing you'll do is take your hair out of all those…" John waved his hand around his head. "…twisty things."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Obviously she would take her hair down immediately; she was very nearly pulling it out of the pins already. But instead of sharing Sherlock's disdain, Adele actually smiled. She nodded once more, then dropped into a curtsy.

"See you tomorrow, then," said John.

Adele drifted from the room, almost but not quite successfully pulling her shoulders back far enough to hide the fatigue that weighed on her slim frame. John rounded on Sherlock as soon as she had gone.

"Don't speak to her that way, Sherlock," he scolded.

Sherlock stepped away and drew himself up. Surely by now the young doctor should have figured out that scolding Sherlock for bad manners was pointless.

"I speak to her the way I –"

"– the way you speak to everybody, yes, believe me I know." John shook his head. “But honestly, Sherlock, hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you're making her feel useless, the same way you do to the rest of us?”

"Why? She's far too clever to care what I say."

John gave him a long look. Eventually, he retreated a step, shaking his head.

"Brain like yours, and you can't even see…" He trailed off briefly. "Not caring isn't clever, Sherlock."

At that, Sherlock could not withhold a snort.

"In order to fortify yourself against heartbreak, you spirited yourself away from society to live in a dark house with a mad old bachelor and his invalid ward," Sherlock pointed out. He adopted an exaggerated, rapt air. He curled an eager fist under his chin. "Tell me again how clever love is, Doctor."

John's eyes narrowed, the bridge of his nose wrinkling, and the sharp churn of anxiety was back in Sherlock’s belly. Suddenly, Sherlock deeply regretted the two steps of space that had sprung up between them. He wished they were standing as they had been moments before, arms very nearly twined together, both leaning on John's cane for support.

Sherlock closed his eyes. A wanton, unreasonable portion of his heart was battering at his ribs, trying to tear out of his chest to apologise. 

"I did tell you not to speak of…” John cleared his throat. His posture had shifted, his spine curled in slightly, his face tipped towards the floor. Silence dropped down between them like a cat from a high perch, a physical presence in the room. Turning, John set his right foot on the lowest stair. He paused that way and Sherlock thought he would speak. The slim cut of his jacket showed the way his sides expanded, compressed. Two deep breaths.

But he said nothing more at all and only went up to his rooms for the rest of the evening.

A dream. Flickers of light like he was perched on the edge of an enormous taper. It was lovely and warm.

Somewhere, John was yelling for him. Perhaps, Sherlock reasoned muddily, it was precarious all the way at the top of a giant candle. The warm wax lip of the taper could melt out from under him. If he could move, he might consider it, but his limbs were heavy.

John was calling his name over and over. There were hands on him, roughly tugging on his arms. It hurt, but that was all right. John's voice had come nearer now. Something solid, a curved plane like a man's chest, like ribs and pectorals and a collarbone, snugged up hard against his shoulderblades. It felt like John, so very like John would feel if he were to be attached to his voice properly and standing so close.

It was warm, too warm now. The arms were pulling him, dragging him away. His feet trailed heavily over the floor. Too warm. Pain bloomed where his shoulders were being wrenched upwards.

"Damn it," Sherlock tried to protest, but his lungs trembled violently and he only coughed instead. Sharp, raw pain rippled through his throat and chest.

"Wake up, you horrible man," said John's voice, and the arms rattled him sharply. There was a sound, something he couldn't place, filling the air around him.

Sherlock's foot caught on a piece of furniture and the hard chest-shaped thing behind him faltered.

"Damn it," said John's voice, and Sherlock felt his body slip. Hands scrabbled over his nightshirt, finding little to hold onto.

"Useless bastard," growled the voice.

Sherlock wanted to chuckle. John ought to say these things to him in reality, in waking life, when things weren't all broken apart and far too hot.

As if on cue, the air turned cold around him. He was lowered to the floor, on his back, and two blunt pressures in his side made it feel like someone had knelt next to him.

"Mrs Fairfax!" the voice bellowed above him. Fingers jostled his cheek, his chin. "I am begging you to wake up, Sherlock," John's voice pleaded. "For me, please, please wake up."

Sherlock felt his limbs stir. The dream was nice, if full of repetition and a little bit of pain, and he was loath to leave it, but John was pleading. Even as a mere fragment in a dream, John was pleading and he sounded horrified, so Sherlock could not disobey him.

Sherlock opened his eyes. It was more difficult than usual.

John's dishevelled head filled his field of vision.

"Sherlock, listen to me," he commanded. "Do you know where you are?"

For a shocked moment, Sherlock did not, in fact, know where he was. His mind felt jumbled, all his mental passageways unfamiliar, flooded with light and heat and smoke.

But just round the curve of John's right ear, Sherlock caught sight of Mrs Fairfax sweeping past with a heavy piece of crockery in her hands.  Above him, John's brow furrowed with concern.

"You might be experiencing some disorienta-"

"It'll take more than a single ewer of water," Sherlock interrupted. It came out as a weak, breathy whisper. Not as impressive as he had hoped.  Amazement swept up John's features anyway.

"Sherlock," he breathed. Hands tightened in the fabric of his nightshirt. Knuckles dragged over Sherlock's collarbone. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock ignored him, stared around him to where flames were licking up on all four sides of his bed. Mrs Fairfax passed through the doorway at speed – aha, clever woman – gathering the heavy bedclothes from John's room across the hall and throwing them over the flames.

"Sherlock!" John demanded, giving him a shake. "Listen to me; I don't think you were burnt, but don't know how much smoke you've inhaled. I need you to focus on trying to walk to the library so that I can look you over."

Sherlock curled his lip. Being told to focus on walking was like being told to focus on arithmetic. Of course he could, but why on earth would he?

Sherlock pushed hard on John's chest so that the young doctor would fall back. He was too close, and being useless to boot. With John out of the way, Sherlock moved to rise, but both legs buckled before he could get himself upright. 

John's arms swept into his space again, catching his weight.

"Bit unsteady there," John observed, unnecessarily.

"I can walk," Sherlock protested, still, to his chagrin, only able to produce a sort of rasping whisper.

"Oh, please, do lead the way," John replied, ducking his shoulders under Sherlock's arm. His arm wrapped tightly around Sherlock's waist.

John steered him away from the bedroom, where Mrs Fairfax appeared to be succeeding at controlling the blaze, and all the way to the library. As they went, Sherlock felt his stride grow stronger. His knees felt less and less as though they might go out from under him.

Inside the library, John at last let him go, lowering him to a nearby couch instead of into his usual chair.

"Lie down if you start to feel faint," he directed.

Sherlock snorted. Then he coughed, which made John snort in turn.

"What in God's name were you doing?" the doctor asked. He took a seat next to Sherlock and sandwiched Sherlock between his hands, one palm on Sherlock's chest and the other on his back. "Take a few deep breaths before you answer."

Sherlock might not otherwise have complied, but a few deep breaths actually proved necessary before he could convince his throat to produce sound.

"I was sleeping," he finally managed. John's hands remained in place, though the breathing examination was presumably complete. "It wasn't an experiment."

John's hands faltered, but stayed.

"You weren't…"

"Attempting to shuffle myself off in a blaze of curtains and mattress stuffing? No." Sherlock stood, jostling his friend's hands away. He wasn't thinking clearly. All the smoke, and that blasted dream, and now John, next to him, concern filling his eyes, very nearly holding onto Sherlock without realising what he was doing –

And, of course, the fact that Sherlock knew perfectly well what was the likeliest cause of midnight fires beneath his bed.

Hastily, he moved to pour himself a measure of whisky. He made it the few steps without toppling, which was gratifying. To his chagrin, he really did need to focus his mind in order to walk without his knees buckling beneath him.

"Drink?" Sherlock offered over his shoulder. Behind him, John produced a throaty, incredulous noise.

"You're mad," he accused. "Offering me a drink like it's any other night, like you're not barely managing to stand there and barely wearing anything beyond a fine layer of soot."

Sherlock decanted his whisky and obstinately did not allow himself to shiver. He was a bit cold now, if he was honest. His nightshirt was of a thin fabric and it left several inches of his legs bare. Still, with John watching so closely, Sherlock could not risk showing any sign of discomfort. He was beginning to fear that any more gentle touches from John might drive him to ridiculous, abominable, frankly sodomitical imaginings.

"Sorry to offend your sensibilities," he said, shrouding himself in the chill safety of irony. He threw back his first drink and poured another right away. "Only I'm fairly certain I've nothing more suitable to wear, given the current state of my bedroom."

When he turned again, John's eyes still held the same worried look, as though he thought Sherlock might still catch fire at any moment.

"You could borrow some of my clothes," John offered as he accepted the glass Sherlock held out to him.

Sherlock flopped down onto the couch.

"I think Mrs Fairfax is rather nearer to my size, actually. Perhaps I shall demand one of her frocks."

\--

At first, John was alarmed by how quickly Sherlock had knocked back that generous measure of whisky, but the liquor seemed to have a calming effect on his friend's nerves. A quarter of an hour later, they were slumped, side by side, John's arm thrown across the back of the couch behind Sherlock's shoulders. 

"I shall never get back to sleep now.”

Sherlock hummed, sloshed his glass around to make a faint whirlpool inside. They both watched the amber liquid spin and settle. Sherlock sloshed again, carelessly, not bothering to keep from splashing a little onto the couch, onto John's lap.

"Stop," John commanded.

The sloshing stopped and Sherlock drew in an abrupt breath.

“You haven’t noticed yet.” 

John shook his head, uncomprehending. 

Sherlock raised a single, goading eyebrow. 

“The leg,” he rumbled. 

John snapped to attention. Had he missed something? Was Sherlock injured? He was on his knees at Sherlock’s feet in a flash. 

Methodically, he surveyed both of Sherlock’s legs, rotating each of those ridiculous pale ankles, running his fingers up the sharp bones of his shins. John pressed gentle circles around the the twin points of his knees, followed long, slender muscles up Sherlock's thighs to where they joined with his narrow hips. 

Falling back on his heels, John sighed, relieved and exasperated at once. 

“Your legs are fine.” John looked up. “What d’you mean –” 

But an unusual shade of pink had tinted Sherlock's cheek, stopping John's tongue. Symptoms and diagnoses chased one another through John’s mind. Fever – disorientation – How long had Sherlock been breathing smoke instead of proper air? Unthinkingly, John drew a hand up to check Sherlock’s temperature and his pulse.

"Are you feeling ill?" John demanded.

"It's the drink," Sherlock declared, clapping a hand over the one John had laid on his neck. "Can't you focus for three minutes on something that's actually interesting?" He peeled John's hand away and took a firm hold on John's wrist.

Bewildered, John permitted his own hand to be waved madly in his face. His arm flopped limply.

And all at once, John realised. His hand, which was not holding onto a cane. His leg, folded up underneath him, bearing his weight, painless. He trembled, overwhelmed.

"My God."

Sherlock dropped his hand and slid smugly back, no longer sitting on the couch so much as reclining on it. He rested his whisky glass on his stomach, looking satisfied.

“It’s happened before," he said matter-of-factly.

“Ah.” John considered, scrutinising his own leg as if it might stand up and answer for itself. “Then… perhaps the pain will have returned in the morning.”

Sherlock’s lips quirked to the side. “If it does, perhaps I shall simply set myself on fire again.”

John grinned, then grimaced.

"You could have been seriously injured," he reminded.

"I know.” Sherlock sounded more amused than anything else.

Feeling giddy and just a bit childish, John gave him a sharp poke. Sherlock swatted vaguely back, long fingers trailing over the sleeve of John's dressing gown. 

The touch, featherlight, was not particularly unlike any others that John had shared with Sherlock, but John felt the hairs rise along his arm in the wake of it. John’s fingers flexed, grasping at air, but the sensation lingered, chilly and warm at once.

Perplexed at himself, John did not rise to return to his seat. He blinked down at Sherlock’s white feet, like bony brackets on either side of John’s knees. Above him, Sherlock seemed to have turned inward, each breath jostling the whisky glass he held resting on his stomach. Lost inside his own brain – probably, John thought, cataloguing the effects of sudden shock on a subject afflicted with imagined bodily injuries. He seemed to have forgotten John entirely.

John watched, transfixed, as Sherlock lifted his glass. He let its rim rest against his lip for a long moment before tipping it all back. All the while, the tiniest curve played about the corner of his mouth, as though he was pleassed by something only he could see.

A thought occurred to John then, a strange little thought that took him entirely by surprise. It felt like a tiny cannon going off in his brain. There were aftershocks reverberating up and down his entire body.

_I could kiss this man,_ thought John.

It would be such a simple thing, such a lovely thing, to clasp Sherlock’s shoulders with both hands, to pull him in, to taste the whisky on his lips. John ran his eyes up and down the lines of his friend’s face, suddenly eager, frantic, _unbearably_ curious. Blood sang through his veins. 

The mix of certainty and uncertainty was heady. He wanted to, _God,_ more than anything he could imagine, but he could not guess how Sherlock would react. Would Sherlock like it if John kissed him? Would he take offense if John tried? The man was an impossible puzzle at the best of times, and this was hardly the sort of thing one just did without preamble.

Then again, Sherlock had made it clear from John’s first day that things at Thornfield rarely went in the usual way.

_I could kiss this man._ John’s blood felt too hot to bear.

Sherlock’s eyes refocused, returning him from whatever clouds his mind had been sailing on. 

“Another drink?” he asked, unknowing of the tumult ravishing John’s nerves. 

“Mm,” John agreed, and plucked Sherlock's glass from his hand. “I’ll get them.”

Sherlock relinquished his glass with a look of surprise.

“Problem?” John flattered himself that he sounded unruffled in the face of what he was about to do.

Sherlock shook his head. The motion pushed his head against the back of the couch, mussing his hair. “Playing host to a man in his own house,” he remarked in that damnably solemn way of his. “Growing a bit presumptuous, aren't you?”

John drew in a deep breath to steady himself and said, “It's about to get worse.”

John set Sherlock’s empty glass purposefully down next to his own. When he worked up the nerve to look back, Sherlock's brow had wrinkled. His pupils darted around and around John's face, rapid enough to make John feel dizzy. Or perhaps the dizziness had to do with something else.

In too far to turn back now, John reached out, wrapped his fingers around Sherlock’s arms, and pulled. Pliant and – for a wonder – uncertain, Sherlock permitted himself to be drawn in. John rose up onto his knees, hips slotting in between Sherlock’s knees. Sherlock’s pale eyes were wide and bottomless.

“Let me kiss you,” John whispered.

Before this moment, no one had ever studied him so closely in his life. Long seconds washed past them, eddying around in the scant space between their bodies. 

“Why?” Sherlock demanded.

John pressed his fingers into Sherlock’s thin sleeves. He hadn’t thought beyond kissing, beyond the simple, blinding possibility of it, and how Sherlock’s skin flickered all orange and red in the firelight. 

“I know it isn’t exactly the usual way of things,” he tried to explain. His hand slipped from Sherlock’s bicep to his knee, then back again, yearning to touch more but unsure that it would be welcome. “It – it seems like it might be brilliant, doesn’t it? Between us, the way we…”

But he trailed off, watching Sherlock’s face. Sherlock’s eyes had narrowed, his mouth a thin unwelcoming line. He wasn’t pushing John away, but he also was not leaning into the embrace.

“The last thing I intended was to offend you,” John murmured, feeling shame flush his cheeks. 

Sherlock’s mouth opened and hung there, unspeaking. The upward twitch at the corner of his mouth was gone, replaced by a blank, bloodless frown.

“Damn.” John ducked his head. He released his grasp on Sherlock and moved away as quickly as he could. “Damn it, I’ve ruined things,” he mumbled, clumsily pushing himself up from the floor. Ridiculously, he bent and picked the discarded glass up to place it back in Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock only looked down into his glass as though it had appeared in his hand of its own volition. 

“God, I’m sorry,” John moaned into the terrible silence.“I’m a fool, I'm –"

John broke off, realising, to his abject horror, that he was trembling. Embarrassment flooded him anew. God, he really had taken leave of his senses. He lingered only a moment longer, then simply lurched towards the door. His feet could hardly keep up with his haste to leave the room.

A deep, gravelly throat-clearing stopped him dead in the doorway. 

"There’s a scar," Sherlock intoned, low and unreadable, "that hooks around the base of your right thumb. Only visible in the right light, as it’s almost faded completely. You were young. The angle, the force of the puncture… you were falling from quite the height. You reached out to catch yourself. Only to find…”

“A nail,” John supplied, turning his head just enough to see that Sherlock had not moved. He remained, stock still, the long line of his body rigid against the soft cushions of the couch. John swallowed. “I was in a stable, snuck in because I liked to see the horses.”

Sherlock nodded. His glass, empty and smudged with fingerprints, glinted in the firelight.

“It would have been less painful just to fall.”

John forced a small smile. Sherlock was right, naturally. He had been up on a ladder, the better to see the horses in their stalls. He had felt himself lose his footing, had scrabbled for purchase, reaching out for a handhold that was not there. Instead of stabilising himself, he had caught his hand on the head of a stray nail, and, for all that struggle, had fallen hard on the packed dirt floor after all.

“Good night, Sherlock.” he said quietly.

“Good night, John.”  

 


End file.
